Fast and Pray

If you got the news, more tragedy rocked India today. Blasts killed close to 100 innocent people in various targeted areas. The Hindustan Times had it all over the front page.
What an appropriate day for the fall semester Day of Fasting and Prayer here at New Theological College.
I have been part of several such days. The first was in Kenya about 10 years ago. When I returned from Scott Theological College that year I hosted a similar day at our church. We had a wonderful time. But, like every prayer effort we attempt as a congregation, it went nowhere.
The rest have been here in India. I admit it is easy to have such a day here where we all live in one campus. Classes are cancelled. What a gift. Here’s how it went down.
After personal devotional time in at home the chapel opens for the day’s events.
I tuck my Bible and a devotional book, published by Upper Room, that I found in Uncle George’s library under my arm and amble along the walkways to this new building that sits on the height of the campus’ acres. The sun warms the earth as it lifts over the rugged hilltops a few miles to the east.
Palm and mango trees host birds that seem to be enjoying the sparkling air. Bougainvillea is in bloom, along with marigolds and many more flowering annuals, as well as those plants with showy leaves.
I am one of the first, not realizing that the service will start about an hour later than a class day chapel service. No mind. Who could help but enjoy pulling a chair to the window, with the sun warming one’s back, and praising God for the mountains to the north, its tiptop houses white in the morning sun? They look like teeth that have been treated to a whitening process.
I have been asking God to show me a text for my Sunday morning sermon, now just two days away. After thumbing here and there, as usual something starts to click and Scriptures lead one to another. It will have something to do with bones, I think. But that’s for another day.
I rise to take a few photos of the breath-taking scene. What a location for a house of worship! We can see in every direction.
Wait! What’s that catching my eye? A 5-inch lizard scoots along the window ledge—a ledge that goes around the whole perimeter of the room, probably 500 feet of it. Zoom the Canon and snap a shot.
I recall the Scripture that speaks of how lizards live in the palaces of kings, doing their share of house-cleaning, I suppose.
I hear something tapping on the windows. It’s a jay-like bird clinging to the frame of these metal windows and tapping gently here and there. Are they sharpening their beaks or just being playful? I hope the shot comes out—they flit about energetically. They may not be sparrows in the taxonomical sense, but they have made a nest for themselves even near the altar, as the Psalmist noted 3000 years ago.
The worship team assembles yards away to get instructions from Professor Matthew, who is leading the first session. Men, women, faculty, and their families are drifting in.
Once again—silence. Beautiful silence. No tapes playing. No whispering let alone talking. Heads are bowed, Bibles open. I sense the presence of God.
Matthew and the translator take their places at the pulpit. Quietly we begin. He previews the day. We’ll be praying the ACTS sequence. We will break up into small bands of 7 or so by turning our chairs at the right time. We’ll spend 15 minutes in pure Adoration of who God is. After a song we’ll focus on Confessing our own and also corporate sins. Then it will be time for Thanksgiving. Supplications will come in the afternoon.
The time flies by.
Then the worship music team leads us in another time of singing—mostly Hindi songs, but a few English—Shout to the Lord, Above All Kingdoms, Blessed Assurance are among those I can do more than hum along with. But humming is fine, too. It lets me watch this community swaying to the music or clapping to the beat, raising the occasional hand. Pretty much like home—so far.
I think how privileged I am to be adopted as a member of this band of believers.
We leave for an hour break. It’s half ten.
Coming back, we are ready for the preaching service. Professor Thomas Cherian, an Old Testament scholar, begins his hour long exposition of Joshua taking the city of Jericho. It’s a slow start, and he is struggling to get into the English mode. (I don’t know how these folk switch, usually with fluency, from Hindi to English. By the time he is twenty minutes along he is getting his rhythm. He is applying the text to our situation, too. And while some of his exegesis is a bit of stretch, he makes four points as the walls come tumbling down—the first walled city Joshua captured with 30 still to go. God can bring down walls that seem too big for us to conquer if we trust and obey.
It’s a standard type of sermon, really. But as we are running toward the one-hour mark, he kicks for the finish line. His voice is elevating and quickening its cadence. Soon he is praying and exhorting us to cast our troubles onto the Almighty and to believe for healing of our fears, our disobedience, our aliments and our sufferings.
Now the congregation begins to pray aloud, crying to the Lord. It’s not chaotic, mind you, or edging toward excess. I feel caught up, but not more than you would expect from a philosopher and congregational Calvinist minister. Up until today I have been perhaps more expressive in chapel than most of these charismatics. Today, however, they pull ahead of me and show their stuff.
Now don’t get me wrong. This is not over-the-top Pentecostalism by any means. Nothing like the questionable shows you see on religious TV. But they are showing their love in an enthusiastic way.
Time for 2-hour break for private prayer and rest. No food has touched lips so far.
I will confess that I had a Wasa bread at the earlier break and a small breakfast at noon that I fixed myself. But then, I’m in a strange land trying to keep well enough to do what I came for without chancing a problem. I prayed about it and got what I took to be a green light. Full disclosure here.
The thing that impressed me most about the morning, however, were the prayers of confession in our group, mostly faculty. Not shy about asking the mercy of God on our many offences and compromises. Why is this so rare back home?
At 2:30 we are back for the communion service, presided over by Professor George Oomen. He is wearing a collar-like shirt and using a prayer book as well as his Bible. He gives a brief homily from the I Corinthians, exhorting us to eat and drink worthily. I find the crafted wording of his comments beautiful to my ear and heart alike.
The attendants come up to help. Four men on one side; four women students on the other. The first holds a plate with bread pieces, the second a tray of cups. We file down the center aisle, beginning with the front rows—men to the left, women and faculty to the right. Take the bread piece. Drink a cup and return it right to the tray. And move away in a circle.
But here is the unusual part. Rev. Oomen has explained that there is a voluntary foot washing to remind us of what Jesus did for his disciples in John’s Gospel chapter 13. We had already left our sandals under our chairs.
In the side sections to right and left of the main auditorium, chairs have been set by twos, facing each other, with a basin in between. A towel is on the arm of one of the chairs.
As I stand waiting, one of the girls motions me to a chair. I see no partner moving with me. But I sit down. The man who appears at this station is Simon Samuel, the principal of NTC. He smiles, kneels down, pouring water from a pitcher over my feet, then drying with the towel. This man is a top scholar and godly man whom I respect greatly. I sense how the disciples might have felt when Jesus himself stooped to this lowly service.
I do the same for him. We rise, embrace with joyous smiles and return to our seats.
As we are coming to the end, it is time to greet one another with a holy kiss—men to men, women to women. (This is India.) So we all mix about, embracing the way you see people in the middle east do when heads of state meet together.
Now its time to go down for tea—this time everyone gets a large semi-sweet bun to break the fast.
As I am walking back to the guesthouse I muse on the beauty of this refreshing day spent with the Lord and his dear ones.
At home we have lost the art and discipline of fasting and praying, even though Jesus commends it. Why is that, I wonder?
I have only a possible answer.
Our brothers and sisters in India, China, Iran, Arab countries, Africa and other like places are under obvious attack by the enemies of Christ. To stay true to the mission to love their enemies they seek a deeper level than most western churches do.
When we get to the place where bombs are killing believers within our borders and mobs are torching churches, then perhaps we’ll become faithful to the Lord in this matter.
For Jesus did say, when asked why his disciples did not fast, that they would fast when “the Bridegroom” was taken from them. Hence the early churches fasted as well as prayed as a matter of course.
What a shame that we are so weak on corporate prayer and totally absent when it comes to corporate fasting.
These brothers and sisters have a lot to teach us.