February 6, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK
Joel 2:12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 + Matthew 6:1-16, 16-21
We celebrate feasts differently today than our ancestors in faith celebrated feasts. They would keep a long fast leading up to a feast, and then there would be a joyful celebration last might last for days. Now, there is a long celebration leading up the feast, and then a fast follows.
Our way of celebrating Christmas is a perfect example. At some secret day in mid October Walmart, Target, and Hobby Lobby put out their Christmas stuff. That triggers something in us, and then for about two months we begin to celebrate. The parties start, the decorations go up, cards go out, and Christmas music begins to play. When Christmas day finally rolls around, we are finished, worn out, and full of we can eat and drink. The December 26, we’ve had it and we’re ready to move on; and then begins the fasting which the secular world calls “the diet.” Christmas Season used to last until February 2. In fact, in Vatican City the big tree and the Manger Scene just came down. In Oklahoma, Christmas season ended at sundown December 25.
This is a curious reversal. In our tradition as Catholics, the build-up was always toward a feast. Celebration came after. Today the feast is first, the fast is after. It’s curious. My suspicion is that we know how to anticipate and event but have not yet figured out how to sustain it. So, we confuse anticipation with celebration. I think one of the reasons is that in today’s life we just find it hard to anticipate anything. We want everything to happen quickly. We do not live well with the tension of something unresolved. Longing and fasting are not strong points in our culture. Consequently, without building up properly for a feast, we do not celebrate properly either.
To feast, one must fast. To taste something extra ordinary, one must have tasted the ordinary. The sublime depends upon sublimation. Seasons of play follow seasons of work. Seasons of intimacy follow seasons of solitude. Presence means something when there has been absence. There is a rhythm to life that must be observed, and when it breaks down, nothing is special and there is little to enjoy. So, Christmas is hardly special when we celebrated it during Advent. Weddings are not very special when the bride and groom have been living together already. Premature experience has a way of draining us of enthusiasm and expectations which can only come from painful waiting, longing, and sublimation.
Let’s get it right this year and this season. It’s time to fast and get ready for the feast. If we take it seriously, the feast will take more than one day to celebrate. The church gives us four: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Saturday of Vigil, and Sunday. Entering this fast anticipating the Feast of Life might suddenly lead us to see that this life is all anticipation for Life’s fullness in the Kingdom of God. Life here is itself a fast when lived in a spirit of self-sacrifice and self-giving. Not taking all there is, not keeping all we have, not demanding and expecting that we have a right to more of anything makes all of life a fast for the great feast to come.