Today's reading comes from Isaiah 58:1-12.
1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day
of your fasting, you do as you please Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
On this first day of Lent, much conversation is had about what is to be given up. A few will add something instead. All who notice Lent will at some point try to do something differently so that the waiting, the dread of the walk to the cross, the anticipation of the promise of New Life, so that all of that won't go un-noticed.
In Isaiah, God rails against crappy fasts, and I think so many of my fasts have been crappy, ending as is described here, in strife and quarreling and stiking others with my wicked fists.
This year as I try to think of a way to make space (again) for the Risen One to rise up in me, I yearn for a fast that looses the chains of injustice, that feeds the hungry and gives shelter, that does not turn away from my own flesh and blood. And so I think this will be my fast: a fast from deciding who deserves what I have to give. A fast from being the Knower of What Should Be Known. A fast from doing as I please.
I will give up some time in each of these 40 days to hear who needs what I have to give from the Knower of All That Is Known and to hear also what pleases him.
May it be so. Amen.
1 comment:
Beautiful. I love this: "a fast from deciding who deserves what I have to give."
XO!
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