Pressing into Prayer and Fasting
This blog post is adapted from Pastor Derik Heumann’s sermon on January 15th, 2023 at Evergreen’s January All Community Gathering.
This is the Second Sunday of Epiphany! Epiphany begins January 6th and goes until February 21st (Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras). This season of the Christian Year acknowledges and focuses our worship and formation around God’s salvation and life extending out to all the nations of the world.
Please read our four Lectionary texts for this week before going on:
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; John 1:29-42; and 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Some historical context is needed to help situate us in each of these four texts from across the canon of Scripture…
The Psalm is coming from the lips of King David who lived 70 years from 1041 BCE until 971 BCE, some 400 years before Exile and the peak of Israel’s power and reign in the ancient near east. David is praying a song of thanksgiving for God’s deliverance.
Isaiah’s message is being proclaimed to God’s people when they are in exile in Babylon after 587/586 BCE. They are hopeless, dejected, and wrestling as if everything was a waste.
The Gospel text depicts a moment from around 30 CE at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry as he begins to invite his disciples to follow him.
Lastly, the letter to the house church in Corinth is being written by the Apostle Paul in 53-54 CE.
As you can see, our texts span roughly 1000 years of salvation history and yet, God is still present and active in each moment being depicted.
With this in mind, we are now able to notice how there are three major themes in these passages: God’s faithfulness, co-laboring with God as servant-workers, and prayerful intimacy. Starting with the first theme of God’s faithfulness we read in each passage…
“Because the LORD who is faithful the holy one of Israel who has chosen you” Isaiah 49:7
“Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from mel let your steadfast love and faithfulness keep me forever” Psalm 40:11
“God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:9
And in the Gospel passage, though not an explicit use of the word faithfulness, there is an implicit fulfillment of God’s promises. Jesus, arriving on the scene and being revealed as the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the Messiah, who takes away the sins of the world. The one who the whole creation is longing to arrive to usher in salvation and redemption. God is showing his faithfulness here.
The second theme in these passages refer to us as servant-workers and co-laborers with God joining in the mission of His unfolding plan of salvation reaching all nations and people…
The King in Israel, David, (the forefather to the Messiah) and chosen vassal of God giving thanks for God’s deliverance and rescue at the height of Israel’s influence and power in its history.
In Exile, God is saying through Isaiah that the mission isn’t over for through you the light of salvation will reach the ends of the earth (he goes on to develop this theme with the “Suffering Servant” passage of 52:13-53:12)
Jesus comes as the true and promised servant, full of the Spirit bestowing his authority eventually upon his apostles and to the whole Church to continue in his ministry of teaching, preaching, and healing…bringing restoration and renewal to the world. Andrew and another disciple receive Jesus’ invitation to “follow him” and they do! They’re becoming students to the Rabbi.
And now the Church in Corinth, though with many issues and troubles are still the sanctified people of God and are currently called to continue serving and blessing the world because of the grace, peace, life, and gifts the Lord has given them
Lastly, there’s the theme of prayer and intimacy with God. Before looking at the passages, let me briefly define prayer for us. Prayer most simply, is listening and speaking with our God. Prayer is like air, without it we suffocate and die. Prayer is also being in the presence of God and recognizing He is WITH US. Prayer is LIFE
In the Psalm, this is all a personal prayer in the first person from David to the LORD, giving thanks for his past deliverance and petitioning ongoing intervention and love from the upcoming trials and battles.
In Isaiah, God uses His personal name (YHWH) through Isaiah’s prophecies to comfort his people in exile. The people are speaking back with honesty and confusion. There’s distress being expressed and assurance being reciprocated.
In the Gospel, we see the Spirit of God revealing to John the Baptist through words of knowledge that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the promised Messiah, as well as the Spirit softening and encouraging the hearts of Andrew and the other disciple to say, “YES!” to follow Jesus.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we see Paul acknowledging how “he gives thanks to his God always for you because of the grace given to them in Christ Jesus.” Also, if prayer helps us notice and see God in our midst, then we know it is through prayer that they will be strengthened to the end as they live out their calling.
As we continue journeying through our 5th year as a Church and this new calendar year of 2023 bringing us to Year 6 this summer, I believe there is good news for us as Evergreen in these lectionary passages and these themes we’ve teased out. Our Mission and Vision hasn’t changed since we started in July 2018 - be disciplemakers and everyday missionaries where we live, work, and play and as we go about this work, we are being faithful to the being the sent people of God and joining in God’s mission of the renewal of the world.
We have all the tools necessary to join God as disciplemakers and everyday missionaries which have been sharpened and clarified over the last 4.5 years. He has been so faithful to us in this work of planting a new community which He’s multiplied now into 4 different Missional Communities. We must remember and give thanks! We stand in solidarity with the stories of Scripture we’ve read and heard around God’s faithfulness and participating in the Kingdom of God reigning in every heart and home in Ann Arbor, Ypsi, Brighton, and Milan.
What we’re lacking and need to grow in is the third theme. Prayer and communion with God both individually and as a collective body.
At our leadership retreat this past summer, God impressed upon us a focus on “prayer saturation.” Prayer is the air that multiplication and disciplemaking breathes. Without prayer we fall into doing things out of our own strength. Without prayer we are missing out on opportunities of conscious communion with the divine. Without prayer we’re suffocating. Without prayer, we’ll never receive the fullness of what God has for us because we’re not asking… “we have not because we ask not.” Yet, throughout church history every movement of disciplemaking and spiritual awakening happens when God’s people prioritize prayer. Prayer for personal renewal, church revitalization, and community awakening.
As a board and staff we’ve been praying and fasting together every Wednesday since August. It’s not been easy, but we’ve shown up together and God has met us. We’ve all experienced a closer intimacy and recognition of God with us. We’ve seen prayers answered, as well as struggled together in the discomfort.
Personally, this weekly fasting has kept me afloat through a rough fall semester, along with my weekly Saturday Sabbath. They have been my means of grace to truly “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
For some of you, prayer and fasting might be unfamiliar and foreign. But these two disciplines are often linked together throughout all of Scripture…David fasting for enemies, the prophet Anna waiting in the Temple for the Messiah, Jesus fasting in the wilderness, Paul and barnabas praying and fasting for guidance in appointing elders over the Church. These disciplines are VITAL to our thriving and flourishing as disciples and missionaries.
Pete Greig, founder of the 24/7 prayer movement writes, “The discipline of fasting can focus our prayers in the way that a magnifying glass can focus sunlight to start a fire.” Deliberately choosing to weaken ourselves by fasting from food can make us more open to receiving strength from God. it also helps us to place ourselves in a humble posture before the Lord, acknowledging with our minds and our bodies that, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4)
God is inviting us on a journey, to lean into our discomfort and focus our praying with fasting. Beginning this Wednesday, we will be fasting and praying together with open hands to receive what God has for us. There will be different prayer intentions each week but also three things we are praying for every week:
For our Evergreen Community to reflect the Kingdom of God, growing in diversity in all ways.
For continual growth in intimacy and power of the Holy Spirit.
For the people of peace in our contexts to experience salvation and follow Jesus as LORD.
Will you join us? Lean into your discomfort, remember God’s faithfulness, join God in his mission of renewing all things, and pray!