Abstaining from meat on Good Friday - have we missed the point?

I'm always amazed by the people who never spare a thought for God in their everyday lives, but get very legalistic about abstaining from meat on Good Friday - sometimes to the point of being horrified when someone else does eat meat on that day - and I'm not just talking about Catholics. Now there's nothing wrong with abstaining from meat - and there are many good reasons to do so, not all of them religious. But I can't help thinking this legalistic approach kind of misses the point.

After all, didn't Jesus say it's not what a person puts into their mouth that defiles them, but what comes out of their mouth (Matthew 15:11).

I don't think this means we should just scrap the rule about not eating meat on Good Friday - at least for those who want to keep abstaining. I believe that symbolic actions and practices like this are important, meaningful and help turn our thoughts towards God.

But those symbolic actions should never become more important than the reason behind those symbolic actions.

It's pointless abstaining from meat if we don't give any thought to why we might be abstaining from meat.

So why do we?

The reason behind abstaining from meat on Good Friday was to share in the sufferings of Jesus. By denying ourselves, we entered into the suffering that Jesus underwent on that day. And by denying ourselves, hopefully we remember that suffering - because we too are suffering.

Okay, confession time. The meal I eat on Good Friday is often one of the best meals I eat that year. Because while I eat fish and vegetarian meals frequently, I make the Good Friday meal a little bit fancy and a little bit special.

And that kind of defeats the purpose.

Or maybe not.

Because in reality, what actually matters about abstaining from meat is whether we are remembering the suffering of Jesus. We don't have to do this by eating fish. We can do it by denying ourselves something else. We can do this by reflecting on the crucifixion. We can do this by remembering the suffering of people around the world.

You can do this while eating a big beefy steak or a meat pie or a baked fish dish or a bowl of rice.

It's not what we put into our mouths that defile us, it's what comes out of our mouth.

It's what's in our hearts.

And it's the suffering of Jesus that is important - and the suffering of the whole world that he entered into - rather than what we eat.

How we reflect and think about that suffering is up to us. For some, it may mean abstaining from meat. Others may choose different ways to remember it. But it definitely shouldn't become a legalistic rule where abstaining from meat is more important than our reasons for doing so.

What's the point of fasting?

I fasted for the first time last Friday.

I don’t say that to boast. If I thought I had any reason to boast at all, I wouldn’t mention it. I say it only because I know how slack I am and I want anyone reading this to know how slack I am (and how little experience I have) when it comes to fasting.

I might just repeat that first sentence again, with the relevant bit in bold in case you missed it.

I fasted for the first time last Friday.

If I was serious at all about fasting, I would have fasted long before now. I would fast for the whole 40 days of Lent (excluding Sundays) and give up diet coke. Although I did drink Pepsi Max for most of last Friday and that was penance enough. At the very least, I would have fasted at least one other day during this Lent season, before now.

I don’t know why I have never fasted before. It is true that fasting doesn’t get much mention from Pentecostal pulpits. And I was in the Pentecostal church for about three years before I even knew that some Pentecostals fasted. But above and beyond that, I didn’t see the point.

I knew that Catholics fasted. But even when Lent started, my thoughts were more geared towards giving up something, than abstinence and fasting. Until I saw a message printed in the parish bulletin. Which made me think I should probably consider doing it.

So now I have fasted. And with my grand one experience of one whole day, making me an expert in my own blog, I would like to tell you exactly what the point of fasting is.

Well, not exactly. More like I would like to think about what the point of fasting might be - or might not be. And because I’m a blogger and I think better when I write, I’m writing a blog post about it.

First of all, to the non-points of fasting. The point of fasting is not to lose weight or save money. They’re earthly benefits. And if we’re fasting to gain earthly benefits, then I think we might miss out on the spiritual ones. And as this seems to be quite a honest post, I will tell you that the thought of both did cross my mind. I thought maybe I’ll lose weight. And I’ll definitely save money. Yay! But if that’s my reason for fasting, I’d be better off calling it dieting and frugality.

Another reason for fasting, that I have heard from some people, is to have their prayers answered. Now the people who I have heard this from have fasted more than I have. So I don’t really want to say their reasons are invalid. But it does seem to be sliding into that area of wanting earthly benefit rather than spiritual benefit again. Although I suppose it depends what you’re praying for. If you’re praying for a new car, I don’t think fasting is going to help too much. If you’re fasting to try and have a prayer answered to overcome sin, then that’s probably a good thing. I think. Maybe.

I may as well face it. I’m not even an expert on my own blog. I can’t even say anything without wondering whether what I am saying makes any kind of sense at all.

But one thing I do know about is me. So maybe I should talk about that. Me and my reasons for fasting.

I decided to fast first of all because I saw that message in the parish bulletin. But also because I want to continually try and get just a little bit closer to where I want to be. And I thought fasting might help me do that. Some people diet to improve their bodies. I wanted to fast to improve my soul.

And I still don’t think my reasons are that fantastic. There’s probably much better reasons for fasting that I haven’t even thought of. But that was my main reason.

But it’s still about ‘getting’ in a way. And to go back to what I said about not seeing the point of fasting. When people say ‘I don’t see the point’, what they are often (not always, but often) saying is ‘I don’t see what I am going to get out of it.’ Of course, the point to a lot of things is not actually to get something out of it.

But still, it’s interesting that I only tried to fast when I saw something I might get out of it. Although these are spiritual goals, not earthly ones, the principle is the same as the reasons why people do many things. I have a goal. I thought fasting might help get - there’s that get word again - me closer to that goal.

But then, all getting isn’t necessary bad and all giving up isn’t necessary good. If I was to get closer to God, that’s a good thing, right? If I want to give up church, that’s a bad thing.

And so maybe I shouldn’t be thinking of fasting as needing to avoid ‘getting something’. I just need to make sure that what I am trying to get is a good thing.

The other point to fasting is penance. I can’t say this crossed my mind nearly as much as it should have. (In fact, I probably thought of it about the same number of times as I thought of losing weight and saving money.) It’s a very important reason for fasting. I know that. And that’s about all I do know. So something that should be discussed in detail is only going to get a couple of sentences. And you’ve just read them.

One other thing that crosses my mind about fasting (although I’m not sure whether it’s considered a reason for fasting at all) is that suffering brings you closer to God. That’s not a popular opinion nowadays. But I do believe it’s true. And I think maybe one of the reasons we don’t accept that as readily nowadays is because many people (in the western world) no longer know what it really is to suffer.

My idea of suffering is drinking Pepsi Max instead of Diet Coke. And I have to say that drinking Pepsi Max does not bring me any closer to God. But then it’s not really suffering. Nor is going without food for a day. If I was actually starving, that would be different.

So I don’t know what it is to really suffer. But one thing I do know is that, in my darkest moments, at the times when life seems really difficult, I am far closer to God than I am when everything is going well. And I don’t know whether everyone else is completely different to me and won’t understand this next sentence at all. But for myself, if I was to never suffer anything in life, I think there is a very good chance I may forget God completely.

And that almost sounds like the saying we hear so often that ‘Religion is only a crutch.’ But I don’t mean it in that way. It’s not like I turn to God only because I want him to help me. I turn to God because when I suffer, I think of God more.

In Luke 22:44, it says that Jesus, being in anguish (some translations have agony), prayed more earnestly. I saw that verse in something else I was reading recently. And it was one of those verses that I have read many times, but that suddenly seemed to jump out at me. And I thought of all the times I have prayed, when I was deeply distressed or troubled. The more anguish I feel over something, the more earnestly do I pray. The prayers said when I am happy and everything is fine are never prayed as fervently.

I seem to have gone slightly off track. Back to fasting.

Jesus not only mentioned fasting, he fasted himself. He didn’t do it to get any earthly benefit. The devil tempted him afterwards, and he resisted temptation. Nor did he do it to ‘improve his soul’. His soul was already perfect. And that is what makes me think that my reasons for fasting may not be that good.

In the Cantena aurea, I found a commentary from St John Chrysostom, saying that Christ fasted, ‘not Himself needing it, but teaching us by His example’.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed in reading this. Because I thought if I could understand Jesus’ reasons for fasting, maybe I would be a bit closer to understanding the point myself.

I’ve just been reading different things on the internet, trying to find some good point to end this post on. But the more I read, the more I realise that any attempt to summarise it and put it into my blog is not going to do justice to it. I didn’t become an expert on fasting through my one day’s experience. And I’m certainly not going to become an expert by spending one to two hours on the internet, trying to skim through things that I don’t really understand anyway.

So I think I’ll just leave it here.