Fasting As A Posture of Prayer — February 18, 2026, Ash Wednesday

Fasting as a Posture of Prayer

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Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

[Jesus said to the disciples,] “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

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My friends, I confess: I really like to be right. I like to have the answers. I like to anticipate the questions so that I can show you I know the right answers. I like to look smart. I work very hard to quiet the still, small voice that sometimes wonders if “looking smart” and “being right” have a place in the kin-dom of God. This Lent, we plan to explore the practice of prayer using the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. This prayer begins, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” I wonder, what do we have to give up, if we want to be instruments of God’s peace? While we’re planning to spend most of Lent talking about prayer, Lent is also about repentance and fasting and acts of love—we call this the “discipline of Lent.” So, what do we have to fast from, what loving things shall we do, if we want to be instruments of God’s peace?

Fasting, in many ways, is part of the posture of prayer. In the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun describes a fast as “the self-denial of normal necessities in order to intentionally attend to God in prayer.” She says, “Bringing attachments and cravings to the surface opens a place for prayer. This physical awareness of emptiness is the reminder to turn to Jesus who alone can satisfy.” 

Historically, fasting has been about abstaining from food on specific days. Catholics abstain from red meat on the Fridays of Lent. Orthodox Christians have fasts from meat, from cheese, from oils, and other things. All over the world, Christians may hold a fast on Sunday morning that is broken when they receive Communion. Others might abstain from food for a day in solidarity with people who are hungry. Or give up distractions so they can better pray or serve God. One year, I gave up Target for Lent. So, there’s that. 

One of the fasting practices Calhoun suggests in the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook is “addressing excessive attachment or appetites and the entitlements behind them, and partnering with God for changed habits.” What things stand between us and God, or between us and neighbor? The point is, ultimately, that the purpose of a fast isn’t a diet. It isn’t even to be a “better person,” really. The purpose is to let the emptiness, the missing, the moment of realization: “ope, I gave that up for Lent,” to let that be a place where we redirect our thoughts to God. 

That’s Jesus’s point when he talks about fasting in today’s gospel. It isn’t to be seen, it is to be re-oriented, re-directed, re-shaped, to have our hearts and minds re-tuned to God. Calhoun says, “This act of self-denial may not seem huge—it’s just a meal or a trip to the mall—but it brings us face to face with the hunger at the core of our being. Fasting exposes how we try to keep empty hunger at bay and gain a sense of well-being by devouring creature comforts. Through self-denial we being to recognize what controls us.” It is so easy to think only of ourselves, of our needs, to rehearse our schedules, and manage our to-do lists. Fasting interrupts those patterns, giving us something rare: the option to set our hearts and minds on God. In this way, fasting is a prayer posture. With our full and busy lives, fasting opens up space for prayer.

So, the discernment for fasting isn’t about what is easy to give up. It isn’t about the things you’re already “supposed” to be giving. Tom Wetzel, a pastor who runs a worship blog, suggests, “Don’t just give up something that you have to give up for your doctor or diet anyway. Make your fast a voluntary self-denial…that you offer to God in prayer.” Calhoun suggests making lists of needs and wants, and taking that list to God in prayer, asking for guidance in this discipline of fasting. Or we could ask, what does God’s peace look like? What in me must be given up—what in me must be left behind, what in me must die—in order for God’s peace to come about?

It would be a good use of Lent to spend most of it in this discernment work. I think we get anxious that we have to have decided by Ash Wednesday what we’re going to give up. It would be okay to give up on that idea. There’s a particular irony in preparing for a season that is, ultimately, about preparation. Look, Beloved, these disciplines are not about perfection. I’m not sure there is a perfect way to fast, a perfect way to pray, a perfect way to serve. These disciplines are about redirecting our desires, our hopes, our lives to God’s reign of peace come near, trusting that God meets us in prayer, meets us in our emptiness, meets us in our fragility, meets us in our deaths in order to give us eternal life.

On the way in, you were handed St. Francis’s prayer. Let us pray together: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.