A Very Lenten Ramadan

Episode 4

This is the fourth short podcast in ‘A Very Lenten Ramadan’, a podcast series which documents my reflections on fasting during Lent this year. Due to the calendar’s alignment of the two faith-based fasts – Lent and Ramadan – I’m fasting during Lent in the same manner that Muslims do during Ramadan… well, mostly adhering to it. But just as Muslims do, the times when I break the fast, I’ve caught it up in other ways as I’ve gone along.

As I reflect on yet another week of my very Lenten Ramadan the theme of this past week has been ‘listening’. This strikes me as being a very good thing, because, when given permission, I actually can talk quite a lot. Much like I am right now.

But when you talk too much, you aren’t really listening to God. So it’s probably a good thing that my fasting has helped me to listen more this past week.

So what have I heard? Well one thing I heard this week was that society has changed – for the better. I was at a work-related event at which lunch was provided and it was actually acknowledged from up the front that people in the room were fasting for Ramadan and they could collect some food in a container and take it home for later that day. And I thought, wow, that’s actually the first time I’ve heard that said at a work-related event.

I know that last year in my workplace we made mention that it was Ramadan in our executive minutes. From talking with a Muslim colleague about this, I know that it was so very affirming for them.

Not that long ago, I feel like secular society held the platform, and acknowledgement of faith and religion was pretty much ignored. However, when you’ve got a significant proportion of a population engaging in fasting and for a sustained period of time, you have to acknowledge it sooner or later, or else be completely lacking in awareness of what life is like for other people.

I think this gave me an understanding of the shared experience that both Muslim Australians and Christian Australians may have, in the sense that they might feel frequently marginalised in mainstream society. I know I do in mainstream Australian society and have for years… decades, even.

So in my listening I heard a connection.

I might also add that at the event I attended, I decided I would eat lunch that day, because I thought it would be super weird if I put on the dietary needs form that I was doing a Ramadan style fast as a Christian. I don’t need to weird people out anymore than I already do. So I had a cup of tea at morning tea and ate food at lunch that day, all after chatting with God about it. But I ate like a vegetarian because that’s what I thought I heard God saying to me. For the record I’m not a vegetarian. I think it was a Daniel diet thing, which, if you look it up is about vegetables.

Which leads to my second point about listening. This past week I felt like I was hearing God speak to me more personally. Not in an audible voice but in quieter promptings.

What he was saying to me was speaking into a number of areas of my life and all rather personal things, so I’m not about to air them online. However, I will say that I noticed the shift into this mode of listening and I wondered whether it took until a few weeks into the fast before this happened because I needed to journey through other things first. Maybe I needed to get myself to a space in which I was more ready to listen. Or more rather, God got me to a space in which I was more ready to listen.

Also, I think that because it’s now just over three weeks until Easter, means there is a shift in the trajectory of the fast. Or a shift in its focus. Not that it’s vague at the start of Lent but it does seem to sharpen its focus as we draw nearer the cross where Jesus died. And I guess, as my focus on the cross sharpens I become more in a posture of listening to what the God who went to the cross has to say to me.

Now, I know in saying that – the God who went to the cross – is totally abhorrent to Muslims and completely different to what they believe. But I’m glad I said it. Firstly, because I believe it’s true. And, secondly, because I wouldn’t for a moment want anyone to think that I’m practising some sort of pluralism or that I think that syncretism – when you bring two religions together – that I think that’s OK. I don’t think that at all.

I respect Muslims and the teachings of Islam. That doesn’t mean I agree with them.

In fasting in the style of a Ramadan fast, I’m seeking to learn more about what Muslims experience in their religion, because then I can relate to them more and, I hope, talk more meaningfully about our different beliefs.

Also for me personally, as one individual on a planet of 8 billion individuals, I’m doing a Ramadan style fast for Lent so that I can bring Ramadan under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in my life. What does that mean? What does that achieve? Well, I’m not totally sure, only God knows. But I believe the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ loves all people, that’s why he went to the cross. Even for Muslims who currently don’t believe that he did.

I hope that they do. And maybe in some small way my fasting in this manner for Lent might be a demonstration to Muslims of all of those things.

Regardless of whether it does or it doesn’t, I pray that as Easter draws ever nearer, you will know that you are precious in the sight of God and his love on the cross is for you no matter who you are and no matter what you’ve done or believed in the past. Even if, like secular society, you’ve believed in nothing religiously much. The cross of Christ is for everyone, everywhere.