Feasting and fasting

In a recent post to his blog, Doug Wilson wrote of the benefits of observing a weekly "Sabbath Feast" on Saturday night (you can read the post here). What a fantastic way to "rejoice and be glad" in the Lord's Day! I'm going to suggest, though, that this rather intuitive suggestion seems strange to many of us because of our already-existing abundance. God has richly blessed all of us in this land--we feast nearly every day of the week, at least when it comes to the amount and availability of food. We feast so much that we have to have places like Weight Watchers to teach us how to avoid food! This kind of "feasting", instead of instructing us about the character of the Lord, serves to reveal our idolatries and lusts. Our god is our collective stomach, and we worship it throughout the day without even thinking about it. Our abundance is crowding out or faithfulness.

As God's people, we need to be people who are accustomed to living simple lives. This doesn't mean that we all need to move out to rural Missouri and grow all of our own food (although it might not be a bad idea for some of us). A weekly feast would be much more meaningful, though, if we were more disciplined during the other six days. We are too busy and too lazy to prepare simple meals--so we all end up at Ruby Tuesday or Burger King, consuming more calories than we could possibly consume on Thanksgiving Day! And when was the last time any of us actually missed a meal (for reasons other than being late to work)? An occasional, purposeful fast would probably teach us a great deal about how to feast.

All things considered, we should strive to live simply, give thanks to God for the plenty we are surrounded by, and save the feasting for the first day of the week! The only folks endangered by such a lifestyle would be those who run the local Weight Watchers . . .