A Call to Fast

NCF Office – October 29, 2024 1 Comment

“If not now, when?” says the sticker by my sink. In today’s note, Vern Fein encourages us to fast and pray for our nation this week before the election. What am I willing to give up to make time for prayer? A TV show, a daily activity, food, or beverage- whatever will focus our heart. May God hear, may God act, may God have mercy. – Pastor Renée 

Isaiah 58:6: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”

As I was praying a month or so ago and lifting up the state of our nation with a truly consequential election coming, it came to my mind to ask our two pastors if they thought it would be a good idea to call for a congregational fast about the situation. Not long ago they agreed and asked me to propose it.

When I was younger, I used to fast quite a bit about a lot of situations. I frankly cannot remember any particularly astounding results. I do not know how God answered or not, but, like many sacraments, we are asked to obey and trust in faith that it makes a difference in our lives and the world.

I do remember in 1982 when the first of the terrible East African famines hit, that Mary Ann Nagy challenged our mercy and justice group to fast and pray that the national media would begin to pay attention as they had mostly back-paged the ravages. We selected a weekend and fasted and prayed as we were led, without prescribing any of the details of how each should individually respond. Within a week, NBC began to publicize it heavily and it swept across the news media. Soon after also occurred the incredible fundraiser Hands Across America, in which many of us participated. I remember that and we praised God for that outcome.

Scripture, in the OT and NT, calls for serious fasting about a lot of issues and we know Jesus fasted and prayed regularly as did his disciples and the apostles. Almost every time anything of significance was at hand, the call to fast and pray was seriously initiated and carried out.

One of the frequent calls for fasting was for the state of Israel and it was common for both individuals and people groups to fast together.

Esther 4:16: Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

We know that we are to pray for our government as many of us do. And we know we are called in many places to be good citizens in our world and that means voting and legislative encouragement to do the right things for mercy AND justice, so badly needed right now. So it is easy for me to ask you to join in this fast the week before this election in any way you choose.

Romans 13:1: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Paul requested prayer “for all the Lord’s people” and for himself that he would speak the gospel boldly.

As an older person, as many in our congregation are, I do not fast the way I did so fervently when I was younger. But this is not a show or a contest. I do not think that Scripture indicated that the style of your fasting time and method (unlike what the Pharisees thought in Jesus’ time) is the key to God listening. Always God wants a sincere heart and each of us can bring that before the Lord.

Therefore from Tuesday Oct 29 through Tuesday November 5, I encourage each of us in New Covenant to fast in the way you choose for the length you choose, beseeching the Father to move in the hearts of our people to choose to vote for candidates that understand how serious Jesus’s call for action is in Matthew 25 and many other places in the entire Bible.  And to be thankful that we live in a nation where liberty is still revered. Thanks and bless you, Vern

Ezra 8:23:“So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.”