Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah
58:1-12
Fairfield Community Church
February 22 , 2023 Ash Wednesday
God, We want to hear your voice. Shout loudly;
don’t hold back. Move in our spirits the way you moved over the waters of
creation. We are beginning a new season today, God, and we don’t want to begin
anything without you. So speak to us today— through silence, through scripture,
through song. Speak to us as you spoke to the Israelites so many moons ago.
Speak to us like a gentle breeze or a loud trumpet. We don’t care how, we just
long to hear your voice. So don’t hold back. We are here. We are listening. Amen.
Is This
The Fast I Choose?
With the beginning of Lent, it will be
almost three years to the day when the world was thrust into a global pandemic.
Words don’t have the capacity to
describe what we have all been through: death, loss, anger, isolation, sorrow,
and confusion—but also discovery, introspection, adaptation, and hope.[1]
While it is tempting to try and find “silver linings” that have emerged from the pandemic, there has been far too much pain, suffering, and death to try and negate the suffering with comparatively minimal benefits to the world. 6,860,000 people in the world have died from Covid. One million One Hundred and Twenty of those in the United States. Think of the families, the loved ones, the children who have lost parents due to this disease.
The pandemic has also revealed much about ourselves, our communities, and the world. The pandemic has revealed deep divides in the world.
Amidst the politicization of our global and national response, we confronted a racial reckoning, a growing economic divide, and what seems like a daily occurrence of hate: politicians inciting division, mass shootings, and the scapegoating of migrants.[2]
So this passage from Isaiah is fitting. It does not go easy on us, just like it did not go easy on the Israelites that Isaiah originally spoke these prophetic words to. The people are prepared to fast. Just as they always have. It’s a habit. Something they do for religious purposes. But are their hearts in it? Are they doing it for the right reasons? It’s the question God poses to them. It’s the question posed to us. Is this the fast you choose?
Are our Lenten practices merely something we do because it’s Lent, and we think we must do something? Do we just do something extra to honor the season of Lent? Clearly, God doesn’t want our accolades. Not if we aren’t doing it for the right reason. Not if they don’t mean anything. Not if our heart isn’t in it. Isaiah says, “You serve your own interest on your fast day.” God wants more. A fast is something that results in humbling oneself.
And then, in case we aren’t sure what God wants, Isaiah gives us very specific examples:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of
injustice,
to undo the straps of
the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless
poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall
spring up quickly;
your vindicator[b] shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help,
and he will say, “Here I am.”
This, my friends, is the kind of fasting that God is looking for. The kind that requires real sacrifice, real contribution, real heart, real action, and real change. This scripture poses difficult possibilities and difficult questions that force each of us to dig deep and ask questions about ourselves and the communities where we live and participate.
While it is easy to blame “them” for the problems of the world, we are being asked to explore how we may have played ambivalent witnesses or unintentional accomplices in creating the deep pain that has been brought to the surface of our world.[3]
And then, it forces us to ask what we are going to do about it. What will we do to heal the pain, to bring about needed change? To bring kindness back into our communities?
The significance of the past few years forces us to face questions, not only about whether hate or love will have the last word, but about how we will be part of a different story for the future. This is where we are inviting one another to sit this Lenten season, in and with the questions, no matter where the answers may lead.
How could the kind of fasting that God might be calling us to, change the landscape of the world? How might it answer the question of whether hate or love will have the last word?
This Lent the sermon series will focus on seeking. Seeking honest questions for a deeper faith. Don’t expect the questions to always be answered! We may just sit with them. Tonight, we ask the first questions.
What kind
of fast will you choose and why? What
are you seeking? In this passage in Isaiah, what are the people seeking and
what is God seeking? In your own life, where does your seeking overlap with
God’s seeking? What areas of your life are conflict with what God seeks?
God’s words to the prophet Isaiah could also be translated as, “Day by day they are inquiring knowledge of me and delighting in my ways.” What would it look like for this to be your Lenten journey?[4] Amen.
[1] commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
[2]commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
[3] commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev.
Bruce Reyes-Chow
[4]
commentary on Isaiah 58:1-12 | by Rev. Bruce
Reyes-Chow
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