That We Might
Have Joy
The Law of The Fast
in the Gospel of the Lord
By
Michaelbrent Collings
CHAPTER 3 – Defining our
Fast
What,
exactly, is a fast? What is it
in the world, what is it in the Church, what is it to Christ? How can we define it? Definitions are important for many because
definitions amount to directions or instructions: this is what it is, so
this is what I must do.
Definitions amount, in many cases, to a starting point of obedience, and
so an attempt to define fasting may be of benefit to us at this point.
So how
do we define a fast? Recourse to the
advice of our friends and neighbors may prove a frustrating or futile
experience. Our Aunt Jane goes without
food and water, but she eats a piece of candy here and there. Our cousin John doesn’t eat, but complains
of headaches and so drinks plenty of liquids to compensate. Our friend Catrina starts with a prayer, but
doesn’t always end with one; and our other friend Tim does exactly the
opposite.
Like
Joseph Smith we are faced with the unhappy realization that everyone is saying
something different, and yet everyone is very likely saying that their way is
right.
So we
must do as he did: we must study it out to the best of our ability, and then
ask the Lord for aid in determining what is true.
The
strictest definition of a fast, from a purely physical level (that is, setting
aside spiritual matters and merely focusing on what physically defines a fast)
is simple:
1. To abstain from food.
2. To eat very little or abstain from certain
foods, esp. as a religious discipline.[1]
There
we have it: a straightforward, no-nonsense definition. We are now ready to go out and fast
perfectly and reap all the corresponding benefits, right?
Hardly.
As
Latter-Day Saints are (or should be) well aware that the handy definitions the
world provides are usually severely lacking in important points. The world is, not to put too fine a point on
it, worldly, and so can hardly be expected to come up with adequate definitions
of spiritual things.
So we
turn to the spiritual, and to the people who have shown themselves to be
spiritual, for our answers. We turn to
the prophets, to the General Authorities of the church, to the wise and
inspired men the Lord has given the world to teach His truths.
And
what have these men to say? Well, to
start with, Elder Robert L. Simpson has said:
[E]ach
member of the Church is expected to miss two meals on the fast and testimony
Sunday. To skip two consecutive meals
and partake of the third normally constitutes approximately a twenty-four-hour
period. Such is the counsel.”[2]
Here
is a latter-day statement that conclusively declares several things: first,
that the fast is something that members of the Lord’s true church are expected
to do. It is more than a request, it is
an obligation, a commandment from the Most High. Second, for this fast (and here we are speaking specifically of
the fast appointed for the fast day each month) we are expected to “skip two
consecutive meals” over a period of about twenty four hours.
David
O. McKay voices similar views:
The
regularly constituted fast consists of abstinence from food once each month,
from the evening meal of Saturday to the evening meal on the following Sunday;
that is, it means missing two meals on the first Sunday of each month…
We are
asked, as a Church, to fast once a month – to refrain from Saturday evening
meal until Sunday evening meal. The
requirement is that all members of the Church fast that day, attend to their
meetings, particularly sacrament meeting, and in accordance with the revelation
of god, give their oblations, render their sacraments, and offer their prayers
to God.[3]
Brother
McKay goes on to discuss fast offerings, which we will discuss shortly, but for
now it seems clear that the regular fast (that is, the fast we participate in
as a general Church membership on the first Sunday of each month) as defined by
the leadership of the Church consists in abstaining from breakfast and lunch on
Sunday (though there are exceptions - such as for the very young, the sick,
etc. - that will be discussed later).
What
about snacking? This may seem a silly
question to some, but many do indulge in snacking, or in drinking, or any of a
number of other “helps” to get through their “fast.” To them, we may ask the following: what can we do to insure that
our “fasting may be perfect”? To start
with, realize that a fast is an abstinence from all food and drink. To this effect, George Q. Cannon says:
There
is nothing in the shape of a commandment upon [the point of whether we must
abstain from drink], but to be a proper and perfect fast it is quite necessary
that water should not be used any more than food…
A
notable illustration of this kind of fasting is found recorded in the 3rd
chapter of Jonah. After Jonah had
proclaimed to the people of Ninevah the word that the Lord gave him, to the
effect that He would destroy Ninevah unless the inhabitants thereof repented,
the people believed God, and a fast was proclaimed. The king himself and the nobles humbled themselves before the
Lord, and the decree they published was: “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor
flock, taste anything: let them not feed, nor drink water…”
This
was a fast that the Lord accepted, and Ninevah was spared.”[4]
It
seems fairly straightforward. President
Cannon points out that the fast as he outlined it was accepted of the
Lord. And this acceptable fast was an
abstinence both from food and water, which may be construed to include all
drink.
And as
to time spent fasting, many people have opinions about that as
well. Twenty-four hours seems to be the
general consensus, but many will argue sunup to sundown, which will vary
seasonally; or bedtime to bedtime.
Here,
the Church has refrained from making overly-specific designations of what is or
is not acceptable. As in many other
instances, the Lord has wisely seen fit to give us general guidelines and let
us obey as we will. Elaborating on this
point, John A. Widtsoe, one of the most prolific of the Elders of the restored
Church, wrote the following:
Let it
be remembered that the observance of the fast day by abstaining twenty-four
hours from food and drink is not an absolute rule, it is not iron-clad law to
us, but it is left with the people as a matter of conscience, to exercise
wisdom and discretion.[5]
So the
answer amounts to this: we do what we feel we should do. The Church’s stand is that the once a month
fast should include an abstinence from two consecutive meals, with the money
that would have been spent therein to be donated to the Church for the purpose
of helping the afflicted. This time
frame will roughly correspond to twenty-four hours, but as Elder Widtsoe points
out, this time period is more a matter of personal conscience than an absolute
rule.
This,
of course, allows us to make allowances for personal circumstances we might
have. One of my dear friends growing up
suffered a very rare disease. As a
result, he had a heart transplant before he was twenty years old. The surgery was successful, but to keep his
body working he had to take numerous pills every single day. Some had to be taken with water, others on a
full stomach. As a result, my friend
could never fast for twenty four hours, or from "sundown to
sundown." Rather, he was
constrained to do what the Lord requires of all of us: the best he could.
My
friend would open his fast on Saturday evening, and would refrain from eating
or drinking until that night. He would
drink the least amount possible to safely take his medications, then would
continue his abstinence until the next morning, when he would eat and drink a
bit - again for safety's sake - and then return to his fast after finishing his
morning pills. He could not fast in the
traditional method, but he ached to follow the Lord, so he did the best he
could with what the Lord had given him.
Rather than making excuses about how hard the fast was, he sought ways
he could follow it to the best of his ability.
Similarly,
there are others of us whose situations will not allow us to fast. Nursing mothers, for instance, or very young
children, might be harmed by fasting.
It is for those reasons that the Lord has restrained from indicating
that there is only one "hard and fast," bright line rule for following
this law. The proper time to fast is as
much a matter of personal valiance and conscience as it is a well-defined
regulation.
And
that might lead us to a profitable question: when we fast, do we look for a
ruling as to time that must be spent because we want to fast correctly? Or do we merely do this so that we will know
what might be the earliest possible time we can break our fast?
To
those of us in the second category (I find myself there all too often), it
might be advisable that we take stock of our level of commitment to
righteousness. The Savior constantly
enjoins us to work hard for Him: “Be anxiously engaged in a good cause.”[6] “Thirst after righteousness.”[7] “Walk the extra mile.”[8] These are all catch-phrases that originated
with the Lord and have become common in the Church, used as an indication of
righteousness. So when we fast, if we
watch the clock waiting for the second hand to sweep past the twelve so that we
can throw ourselves on the food that waits at the earliest possible time, are
we really “going the extra mile”?
Not that the fast is something that we must
draw out to prove our piety. Such
practices hearken back to the Pharises' observances of Christ’s time, the very
actions that led Christ to condemn so many for their tendency to swallow camels
while straining at gnats.[9] We need not fast longer and longer and
longer to prove that we are devoted.
But we
must also be wary of that tendency we have to try to do as little as possible
and still be counted as “righteous.”
The
righteous have ever been a class of people who do what the Lord wants them to
do in a spirit of joy and thanksgiving.
It is hard to picture President Hinckley sitting down on Fast Sunday,
watching the clock and thinking, “I wish this fast would end.” But it is similarly easy for one to picture
him getting caught up in the spirit of the fast, the time the Lord has set out
for us to draw closer to Him in this very special way.
Further
clarification of what constitutes a true fast may be found in the
scriptures. Again, from George Q.
Cannon we have this statement:
Probably
the most explicit definition of fasting as acceptable to the Lord is given in
the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, where the Prophet, reproving hypocrisy and
comparing a counterfeit with a righteously-observed fast, says:
Behold,
ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye
shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it
such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bullrush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Wilt though call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Is not
this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the
heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Is it
not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast
out to thy house? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him; and that thou
hide not thyself from thine own flesh? (Isaiah 58:4-7)[10]
Even a
casual reading of this passage of Isaiah will show the reader several important
aspects of a proper fast. First, the
fast is not meant to be an affliction.
Rather, it is meant to free those who practice it from bondage. It is also designed as a method of spreading
material goods to those who need it, specifically the hungry, the naked, and
the poor.
Also
of note is the order that these things are named. In Old Testament literature, the order of primacy is generally
followed, meaning that the most important things are mentioned first. It is interesting to note, then, that the
spiritual benefits of fast observance are written of before the physical
blessing of being able to care for the poor.
More shall be written of this later, but it is certainly cogent to the
present discussion to notice that spirit and material blessings are mentioned
here together, once more showing the marriage of spiritual and physical reward
through the observance of the fast.
Indeed, as we shall see, the fast has power to transcend the lines
between spiritual and physical, entering the realm of the Godly, where there is
no temporal without the spiritual, and no spiritual without the temporal.
But to
return to scriptural assertions of the fast, another excellent set of rules for
proper fasting can be found in the sixth chapter of Matthew. Here, none other than Christ Himself,
Teacher of teachers, gives his disciples instruction on the fast and how to
realize its power:
Moreover
when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they
disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their
reward.
But
thou, when thou fastest, annoint thine head, and wash thy face;
That
thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and
they Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.[11]
And
once more we see here, as in Isaiah, an exhortation to fast with
happiness. The fast is not meant as a
time of trial, it is meant as a time of joy.
Fasting
is intended to be an affair of the heart rather than an outward manifestation,
just as secret prayer is recommended by the Master in preference to the display
of the Pharisees. One who fasts need
not by a long face, or by a pained expression of countenance, or making a
virtue of abstaining from his customary work, give public notice in this manner
of his observance of the fast. The main
thing is to bring the heart and being into a condition receptive to the
influences of the good Spirit and to approach in prayer the throne of the
Father with a soul filled with praise, humility and faith.[12]
The
fast is given us that we may come closer to the Lord. It is given us that we may become more like Him, and surely there
can be nothing greater than that, even among all His creations! We have the chance, through the principle
and practice of fasting, to become more like Jesus Christ – and, by extension,
more like our Father in Heaven. And not
only to become more like them, but to do it quickly, to proceed with speed upon
the path that leads to perfection and exaltation in the Celestial kingdom.
How
can the fast do this? How can we become
like Father in Heaven through the simple act of fasting? Once again, we look to scripture, both
modern and ancient, to answer this question.
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