Fasting to Wake Up.

Luke 5:33-39

March 1, 2017 + Ash Wednesday

I.

Recently I saw some pictures of a few of the men of the church changing lightbulbs.  This prompted me to remember some of those old “lightbulb jokes.”  There were several about Presbyterians.  The one I want to recall tonight is: “How many Presbyterians does it take to change a lightbulb?  Three: one to change the lightbulb and two to reminisce about how much they liked the old one.”

Of course, the whole point of changing a lightbulb is that the old one has burned out.  Although these days we do change lightbulbs because the new ones last longer and use less energy.  A few years ago there was a little controversy about light bulbs, with some people steadfastly sticking with the old incandescents, even claiming that the switch to new-fangled fluorescents or LEDs was a sinister government conspiracy.  They were even hoarding incandescents as an act of protest.

We don’t hear from such people any more.  They have probably sheepishly decided that saving money was more important than their principles or paranoia.  

But I thought of that when I read Jesus’ words at the end here about how no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says “the old is good.”  Old wine is better because it has been allowed to age a bit.  (Old Scotch is even better than old wine, but I digress.)

He’s not talking about wine, of course, but religion and spiritual practices.  He was originally asked why his disciples do not fast like the disciples of the Pharisees and even John the Baptizer, his own mentor.  Jesus was known for his apparent laxity towards the Law.  He does not appear to have engaged with much asceticism, at least not after his strenuous 40-day fast in the wilderness.  

He uses a metaphor about a Bridegroom, basically pointing out that no one fasts at a wedding reception.  But if the Bridegroom, meaning himself, is taken away from them, that will be the time for fasting.  He means that while he is around it is party time!  But when he is taken away, his disciples will have to recover some of the older practices like fasting.  

He is taken away by the police and then executed by the Romans, events we remember at the culmination of Holy Week.  I have probably taken Jesus a bit too literally, but for years I have fasted from Maundy Thursday until Easter Sunday, when Jesus is symbolically most absent.  But isn’t Jesus really always with us in Spirit?  Is the Bridegroom ever really gone for us?  Why do Christians fast at all, then?

II.

But while Jesus is never actually gone from us or taken away from us… unfortunately, since his departure at his ascension, we habitually and chronically wander away from him.  It just feels like he has been taken away.  

Since we do not have the benefit the original disciples had, with Jesus physically, temporally next to them, we tend to slide off into thinking that the old wine really is better, and we fall back into the kind of faith he criticized: a legalist, moralist, patriotic, traditionalist, literalist religion; a religion of old incandescent lightbulbs, if you will, that were expensive and burned out quickly.  But we still think they were better.  They seemed somehow brighter and they came on instantly!  And that old wine was tastier too!  

When Jesus talks about the presence of the Bridegroom and the newness of the wine he is giving us metaphors for how awake we are to the truth of God’s Presence with us in him.  To say “the Bridegroom is here!” means we are perceiving how Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit is with us now.  To talk about “new wine” means experiencing the vibrant, wild, even explosive awareness of the Spirit at work in the world.    

Most of the time we don’t see these realities.  Most of the time we only see the world, as Paul says, darkly, like in a defective mirror, though the distorted lens of our egos.  Most of the time we are completely unconscious of the Bridegroom, who seems to have been taken away.  And the new wine is not considered any good.  

When we are spiritually asleep we feel like the Bridegroom has been taken away.  Jesus says that when it seems like the Bridegroom has been taken away, that’s when his disciples will fast.  Ascetic practices like fasting have to do with waking us up and making us more conscious of where and who we are.  They are supposed to jolt us out of our lethargy and sleepwalking, and snap us out of our unconsciousness.

This is not something that is only necessary at certain times of the year.  it is necessary all the time, but at certain times of the year the church has chosen to give this special focus.  And Lent is the most significant of those times.  It is the season when we follow Jesus to the cross.  It is when we admit to ourselves systematically and intentionally how far we have fallen from being able to see the truth.  It is when we sense that the Bridegroom is gone, that he has been taken from us, that we are left in a dark existence, and need to be shocked awake. 

So we fast during Lent in hopes that we will be awake when at Easter the Bridegroom shows up again.  We put this moderate stress on our body, we break our habits, we deny ourselves and force ourselves to think about what we are doing.  Lent is when we want to be most conscious, so that when we get to Easter and we hear those stories and sing those hymns we will see most clearly and realize most profoundly how the Bridegroom emerges to be with us in resurrection.

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