"I will be satisfied as with the richest of foods" Psalm 63:5
Dear Friends,
The month of fasting for many Muslim neighbours begins the evening of Friday 28th February. How can we speak kindly and saltily to our Muslim neighbours who will be fasting this month?
Of course, Jesus speaks against the abuse of fasting in Matthew 6 and this is a very powerful word to share with our friends who choose to fast. But there is a deeper issue: Westerners have been so conditioned to live for comfort that the idea of no food between sunset and sundown sounds almost outrageous. Job's comment (23:12) that he treasured God's word more than his daily bread needs to challenge us and recalibrate our appetites.
All this convinces me that the church in the West needs preachers who stand, as it were, in Ideological Istanbul: meaning that we need to understand both East and West and show how both cultures have strengths but also serious blindspots.
Our Western mindset means that we can be weirded out by our neighbours who do fast, which is such a strange instinct, given the positive view the Bible takes of fasting (rightly practised). We have been conditioned to think these people are not likely to want to hear about Jesus. My experience in recent years is that Muslims are now coming to the light of Christ in significant numbers. The challenge for us is: will we expect them to embrace all our Western norms or will we accept them as partners in Christ from whom we can actually learn a lot?
Philip Jenkins suggests that Ramadan had its origins in the season of Lent observed by the Eastern Christians. This explanation is contested, but nonetheless it is a reminder that Western Christians in today's age have moved a long way from their heritage, in which fasting definitely had a place.
What I highly recommend is having Psalm 63 written out, or on your phone. When you ask a shopkeeper if they're fasting during Ramadan, say that you have a short poem that you love to read during Ramadan. Read out to them Ps 63:1-5 (or the whole Psalm if there are no other customers!)
1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 I will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
As a follow-up, offer to ping it to them on Whatsapp in Urdu/Kurdish/Turkish or whatever is their mother tongue.
If you have time to explain, you can say in David's time the sanctuary was a tent containing the Ark of the Covenant. But when David's great descendant came, he was himself that sanctuary, the meeting place between God and Man. "I have seen you in Christ Jesus
and beheld your power and your glory"
Don't be afraid to pray out loud for your shopkeeper and his family:
"O Great God who made the Heavens and the Earth and all that is within them, I pray for Abdul-Rahman and his precious family. As they struggle to work in the shop and at home and study at school with no food to keep them going, I pray that they will be satisfied with you as with the richest of foods; would they celebrate all that you have done in history especially in sending 'Isa al Mesih'; would it be true of them that as the Holy Zebur says 'with singing lips their mouths will praise you.'
Amen.
Muslims do not sing in the mosque. They recite Arabic phrases in a mournful, submissive tone. But for believers in Christ singing is the fitting response to what God has done: we break forth in song because we have a great Saviour who left heaven for this broken world, to teach us a better way but also to open a way for us, through the curtain into the very presence of God, through giving his life as a sacrifice for us: "with singing lips my mouth will praise you."
Amen!
May the Lord make his face shine upon you this Ramadan,
Jeremy
PS I was saddened to enquire a while ago and find that there are virtually no booklets and no tracts addressing the big issue raised by Ramadan. Apart from Piper's A Hunger for God, the church does not publish or preach much about fasting. Neither does there seem to be a booklet we can give to our Muslim friends who face a very challenging month. But please comment and recommend any resources that may have more recently emerged.
