Now whenever you fast, do not make a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they distort their faces so that they will be noticed by people when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. ¹⁷ But as for you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that your fasting will not be noticed by people but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. ^[1]

~Jesus (Matthew 6:16-18

Why it matters: We are to fast. Jesus expects it. We are to fast and pray. We are to fast and pray for our co-workers, our companies, and our supervisors, managers, and corporate officers. We are to do it at work. We are to do it in such a way that none of our colleagues know we are doing it.

Fasting may express our self-humbling before God. For if ‘penitence and fasting’ go together in Scripture, ‘prayer and fasting’ are even more often coupled. This is not so much a regular practice, so that whenever we pray, we fast, as an occasional and special arrangement, so that when we need to seek God for some direction or blessing, we turn aside from food and other distractions in order to do so.

Our Master Jesus himself fasted immediately before his public ministry began; and the early church followed his example, the church of Antioch before Paul and Barnabas were sent out on the first missionary journey, and Paul and Barnabas themselves before appointing elders in every new church which they had planted. The evidence is plain that special enterprises need special prayer, and that special prayer may well involve fasting. We should regularly fast for our workplaces.

Hunger is one of our basic human appetites, and greed one of our basic human sins. So ‘self-control’ is meaningless unless it includes the control of our bodies and is impossible without self-discipline. Paul uses the athlete as his example. To compete in the games, he must be physically fit, and therefore he goes into training. His training will include a disciplined regime of food, sleep, and exercise: ‘every athlete exercises self-control in all things’. This discipline is important at work. The discipline of fasting will show up in our discipline in the workplace. Our co-workers will see the fruit.

Followers of Jesus engaged in the race of faith at work should do the same. Paul writes of ‘pommeling’ his body (beating it black and blue) and ‘subduing’ it (leading it about as a slave). This is neither masochism (finding pleasure in self-inflicted pain), nor false asceticism (like wearing a hair shirt or sleeping on a bed of spikes), nor an attempt to win merit like the Pharisee in the temple. Paul would reject all such ideas, and so must we. We have no cause to ‘punish’ our bodies (for they are God’s creation) but must discipline them to make them obey us. And fasting (a voluntary abstinence from food) is one way of increasing our self-control at work.

^[1] New American Standard Bible. (2020). (Mt 6:16–18). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.