Fasting Day 20 of 40 | Fourth Thursday of Lent
“But the earlier governors—those preceding me—placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God, I did not act like that.” Nehemiah 5:15
In his effort to rebuild the walls and God’s people, Nehemiah had to set a different example than the gluttonous governors before him. For many of us, this passage rings relevant. We serve in places where people in authority abuse their power and privilege. What do we do?
In his Pastoral Rule, Gregory offers this answer. “The gluttonous are to be admonished, that in giving themselves to the enjoyment of dainties, they pierce not themselves through with the sword of lechery; and that they perceive how great loquacity, how great levity of mind, lie in wait for them through eating, lest while they softly serve the belly they become cruelly bound in the nooses of vice.”
Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) in The Book of Pastoral Rule (Popular Patristics Series; New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007) p. 119.
We fast in Lent because our human tendency leans toward serving our belly. Pastors and people in authority or oversight do well to remind others that when we serve our belly we become “cruelly bound in the nooses of vice.” Our desires control and destroy us. It took place in the days of Nehemiah and still happens today. Don’t let it happen to you.
God, teach me to act different like Nehemiah. Amen.
Fasting tells our body that we will not be ruled by our desires. It builds discipline in us. Sit with the Holy Spirit. What areas of your life needs this discipline. Do games, social media, TV, or other desires control you?