Twice a Week

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people… I fast twice a week.”

That’s how the prayer of the Pharisee begins in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. That parable (Lk 18:9-14) is the regularly appointed Gospel for Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent.

Now, to be fair to the Pharisees, this story isn’t a report. Luke tells us that it is a parable, an illustration used to teach a spiritual truth. So we might rightly wonder, “Did some or all of the Pharisees actually fast twice a week? And if so, why?”

There were two kinds of fasts in Jesus’ day – a public fast and a private fast. The public fast was mandatory for everyone. It took place on the Day of Atonement and at times of national crises, such as drought, crop failure, epidemics, or war. It was somewhat akin to the modern national day of prayer or flying the flag at half-mast.

The Day of Atonement fast was a one-day fast. In the case of drought, a full fasting observance lasted 13 days. Monday and Thursday were always the fasting days, so that the entire fast lasted about six and half weeks. Monday and Thursday were chosen because they had no contact with the Sabbath day and because they were far enough apart to prevent the fast from making demands on a person’s health that were too strenuous.

People often observed the fast by sitting in prayer. In fact, one common expression for fasting was “sitting in a fast.”

The private fast was a voluntary fast for individuals. It used to be an occasional event (see e.g. 2Sa 12:16; Dan 9:3), but by the final two centuries BC it had become a regular practice, at least in some Jewish circles. The individual could fast whenever he chose, except for the Sabbath day, festival days, or other national days of joy. But by Jesus’ day people usually undertook a private fast on the same days designated for the public fast – Monday and Thursday.

The private fast came to be so highly regarded in the synagogues as an expression of devotion to God that two special, regular practices arose. First, there were certain “men of standing.” These men had to represent the entire Jewish people either at the daily morning burnt offering at the temple, or by assembling at their local synagogue for joint Scripture reading and prayer. They served one week at a time. When it was their turn to serve, they fasted and prayed from Monday through Thursday – on Monday for the safety of those traveling by sea, on Tuesday for the safety of those traveling by desert, on Wednesday that the children might not be inflicted with angina, and on Thursday for the safety of the pregnant and nursing.
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Secondly, some Jews were especially zealous for the law and wanted to go above and beyond the service rendered by the men of standing. They regularly fasted twice a week, every Monday and Thursday. Some who did this were even allowed to continue their fast if one of the national days of joy fell on a Monday or Thursday, if they took their fasting vow before these national days of joy were publicized. Such regular fasts could last for a year or even longer. The Pharisees, who took special pride in their standing before God and the people, would have valued such fasting, even if each one of them did not undertake it himself.

Why would someone undertake such a fast? Many Jewish scholars considered fasting to have the power to atone for sin. Men who undertook such regular fasting twice a week were hoping to turn away God’s wrath and thus guard the Jewish people from any national tragedy. According to Jewish tradition, one rabbi named Zadok, who lived around 50 AD, “sat in fast [fasted every Monday and Thursday] for forty years in order that Jerusalem might not be destroyed.”

The Pharisee Jesus put into his parable doubtless belongs in this second category. He carried the welfare of the Israelites on his heart as he fasted and prayed week after week. The people would have looked up to him as extraordinarily devout and many would have regarded him with gratitude. After all, by his fasting he was supposedly earning God’s mercy and atoning for their sins. If things went well for the Jews and their families, it was partially due to men such as he, so they thought.

What a shock it must have been, then, when Jesus told his audience that the tax collector, “rather than [the Pharisee], went home justified before God”!

Fasting in itself was not sinful. David and Daniel fasted. John the Baptist’s disciples fasted (Mt 9:14). The early Christians fasted (Ac 13:1-3). Martin Luther wrote in his Small Catechism that “fasting and other outward preparations may serve a good purpose” in preparing to receive the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps one of the reasons this Gospel was appointed for Ash Wednesday is that many devout Christians today still fast during the season of Lent.

But if we treat fasting as a work of righteousness in which we can trust (Lk 18:9), especially when God has not commanded us to fast; if we think that we can atone for our own sins or the sins of others by fasting; if we fast to show off instead of in humility (Lk 18:14); then our fasting is damnable, because it is based on a lie.

Jesus has already turned away God’s wrath over our sin once and for all (Ro 5:9-11). No further atonement needs to be made. This Lent, let us humble ourselves before God, not in order to receive anything from him. Sinners such as we cannot earn anything from him. But let us humble ourselves precisely because in the life and death of Christ God has already blessed us with everything (Eph 1:3).

For further reading: Isaiah 58; Matthew 6:16-18; Luke 18 and Fasting