What I Know About Fasting I Learned From Muslims

Lent is the 40-day period leading up to Easter, during which Christians are encouraged to fast and pray. To be honest, I didn’t know much about fasting until a few years ago, when I decided to fast during Ramadan with some of my Muslim friends. I blogged about what I learned each one of the thirty days. Here is my first entry from that experience in July 2012:

I woke up at 4:20 am this morning, ate four hard-boiled eggs and a blueberry bagel, swallowed down a cup of coffee, and sat down to pray.

And I haven’t eaten or had a drink since.

The clock reads 6:26 pm, and I still have over two hours to go.

This is the first day of Ramadan, the holiest month for Muslims around the world. For thirty days, Muslims fast from all food and drink from dawn to sunset.

I decided to observe Ramadan this year, for a number of reasons which I will explain over the next thirty days. I plan to blog about the experience, too.

I have tried my hand at fasting in many different ways over my lifetime, most recently with a regular Friday fast from sunrise to 3 pm. Fasting has never come easy for me – that may be the point!? – but I have certainly come to value the spiritual rigor and discipline of abstaining from food for extended periods of time.

We American Christians aren’t really all that good at fasting; it’s never been high on our list of spiritual disciplines. Even in the one season of the church calendar in which we are supposed to fast, Lent, we manage to find ways to minimize and downplay the sacrificial aspect of the fast. We give up chocolate or soft drinks for an entire forty days – woohoo, that should bring us closer to Christ!

That’s why I’ve always been fascinated by the extreme fasting that most Muslims practice during Ramadan – no food or drink during daylight for thirty whole days!

Recently, I’ve felt a little stale, dry even, in my own spiritual life. I do the normal, daily things; I go through my regular routine of prayer and Bible reading. But it doesn’t seem as rich and as profound. I’ve found myself deeply distracted by things happening in the world, including by matters related to the United Methodist Church.

I took a meeting with my good friend, Shaikh Yaseen, the imam (religious leader) of a mosque in Plano, part of the Islamic Association of Collin County. We have been friends for several years, and recently I attended the dedication of the new wing of the mosque.

When I told him that I was considering observing Ramadan, he grinned and said, “Brilliant!” in his British accent. “It’s intense, you know.”

I informed him that I was well aware of what such a commitment meant, but asked him to give me a deeper understanding of what it meant.

“Ramadan is a fast of the body, of course,” he said. “But even more importantly, it’s a fast of the hands and feet and eyes, and finally, of the mind. It’s a time to become very aware of God and to be completely obedient.”

I am intrigued by the fact that “Islam” means “submission,” and that, fundamentally, the Islamic faith is an attempt to practice submission to God’s will on a daily basis. This is not a foreign idea to Christians – this was Jesus’ stated approach, as well. He famously said, in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He also once said that whoever did the will of his Father in heaven, were his brother and sister and mother.

The core of both Islamic and Christian faith is the quest to know, and to live within, the will of the one God.

Yaseen went on to explain that, during Ramadan, Muslims read through the Quran, make special financial gifts for the needy, and attend prayer time at the mosque daily. It is, in fact, a month of searching, of devotion, of love of God and neighbor. It is a living symbol of one’s hunger and thirst for the true God.

That’s what appeals to me in my current spiritual tepidity. I feel as if I need a jolt to my senses. And I know that observing Ramadan will deliver a burst of hungering and thirsting for God – a God whom Muslims call “Allah,” and whom Christians call “Father.”

But there’s another reason that I have chosen to “act like a Muslim” over the next thirty days. I truly want to stand in solidarity with my friend, Yaseen, and his congregation in Plano. I want them to know that I do not resent their presence in my community and country. In fact, I am very glad that they are here.

Not only do I stand with the Plano Muslims, but I have also begun to make friends with Muslim refugees from Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan. I’ve previously written about Mohammed, a young Sudanese Muslim who often attends our Sunday evening house church gathering. The last time I served him Communion, he asked if he could pray “for the food” first. After he prayed in Arabic, I happily offered him the bread and cup, symbol of Jesus’ love and sacrifice.

I get to return the favor now. By turning down food and drink during Ramadan, I begin to wear Mohammed’s shoes, live a small part of his life, and catch a glimpse of his own religious commitments and devotion.

I don’t know if I can truly love Mohammed until I do this. I don’t believe that I can truly be Yaseen’s friend until, and unless, I attempt to enter into his story, into his life narrative. I must know what it is like to worship God as a Muslim.

Perhaps then I will learn how to worship God ... as a Christian.

Wish List for the Next Methodism

Permit me to dream a little, or maybe a lot.

The debacle at last week’s General Conference was heartbreaking and tragic, yes, but it’s also an opportunity. Even though the United Methodist Church appears to be irretrievably broken, maybe something new is going to burst through the cracks of the old structure.

I mentioned that there is lots of talk going on at the moment about the possibility of creating a new Methodist movement, a brand-new denomination.

So while we’re talking about it, let’s sketch the contours of what might be ahead, first by considering what we could (finally) leave behind, and second, by dreaming of what we could actually incorporate in a new system.

What of United Methodism could we leave behind?

Obviously, my first answer is that we could leave our homophobia behind. We could leave behind the ridiculous statement that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” But there are other things we could do without, or at least reconsider:

— Our obsession with paperwork, forms, and counting things: Do I really need to say more?

— Lifetime terms for bishops: I would propose that bishops be allowed to serve up to 12 years, then must return to an appointment in their Annual Conference. This would require a true sense of humility and servanthood among bishops, and would equalize their relationships with other clergy.

— Legislating by Robert’s Rules of Order: There are other ways to run meetings besides voting, preferably something which favors spiritual discernment and consensus.

— An appointment system which favors white males: There is an unspoken “ladder of success” in appointments; somehow only white guys end up with the biggest pulpits and biggest salaries.

— Structural racism: See above, but also note that there is an amazing lack of UM resources devoted to south and west Dallas in our own conference.

— Emphasis on buildings and properties: I’ve noticed that appointments in our conference congregate around already-existing buildings, instead of recognizing that the best evangelistic opportunities in our society require being outside of the walls of a physical church.

What should we include in a new Methodism?

Again, my first response would be that a new church must fully affirm and include LGBTQ people. This is a non-negotiable. But there are other things that we might consider:

— Equalized clergy pay: In the Methodist Church of Great Britain, all pastors make the same salary, with only slight adjustments based on years served. This would completely eliminate the competition that pastors in the US feel about “moving up the appointment ladder.”

— Greater flexibility in pastoral appointments, including those outside of traditional church settings: Over the last few years, younger clergy candidates are consistently opting out of ordination because they feel called to ministry outside of the local church. We must find a way to allow them to follow their call while supporting them with a network of accountability.

— Greater flexibility in local church organization: If you’ve ever served on a church committee, you know that we are required to have a Board of Trustees, a Finance Committee, a Staff Parish Relations Committee, a Church Council, as well as a host of other committees or groups to effectively get things done. Small churches often have a difficult time filling all the positions required, so it makes sense to widen the options for organization.

— Conferences to be gatherings for corporate prayer and worship primarily: Every year, our Annual Conference provides numerous experiences to worship together, and these are the moments we remember. We don’t go home with fond memories of the pension report. More worship, less reporting and voting, please.

Those are some of my dreams for something new. What about you? What would you propose we leave behind? What do you hope we could include?

Just in Time for Lent

It’s common tradition to burn the previous year’s palm branches from Palm Sunday to use on Ash Wednesday. I would like to suggest instead that we use the ashes of what’s left of the United Methodist Church for our service next Wednesday.

Because frankly, not much is left. The Traditionalist Plan which passed General Conference on Tuesday effectively dismantled the denomination for those who believe that LGBTQ persons are worthy of weddings and ordination.

However, I can’t think of a better church season to enter at this point than Lent. After the shock and disappointment of General Conference, we enter into forty days of fasting and prayer.

Like the ancient children of Israel, we walk into the wilderness, not sure exactly where we’re headed, but following a rogue cloud in the daylight and a fiery pillar at night.

Like Jesus, we enter the desert, where we encounter Satan, who is eager to sell us a false dream.

Like Paul, we are thrown into prison, where we can do nothing but sing and pray, while the earth shakes beneath us.

And so, in the words of our Methodist liturgy, let me beckon you to the church next Wednesday at 6:30 pm for a service of ashes:

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church,

to observe a holy Lent:

by self-examination and repentance;

by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;

and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.

To make a right beginning of repentance,

and as a mark of our mortal nature,

let us now kneel before our Creator and Redeemer.