Is Such the Fast that I Choose?

“Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?” (Isaiah 58:5) 

I was surprised to discover this week that Lent is rapidly approaching. I was surprised, because if it’s true that Ash Wednesday is only ten days away, then it means that’s Easter’s only two months away; and if Easter’s only two months away, then it means that it’s almost spring; and if it’s almost spring, then why is it six degrees outside? It doesn’t add up.

But it’s true. Lent begins in just ten days. And so, it’s around this time that some people begin to think or talk about fasting: about what they’ll “give up” for Lent, or perhaps what they’ll take on instead. You might hear people planning to fast from alcohol, or chocolate; from social media, or from coffee. You might hear people planning to take on a new practice or prayer or journaling, of serving the community or giving money to a good cause. Some people see the traditional Lenten practicing of fasting, of “giving something up,” as a helpful spiritual practice, others as an outdated burden. Personally, I always try to think of Lent as an exercise in willpower and self-knowledge: the point of “giving something up” for Lent is to refrain from something you enjoy, but which is essentially harmless, in order to gain a better understanding of your own internal dynamics of temptation. You might give up chocolate, for example, not because chocolate is bad; but because learning to resist the temptation to have just one more little square helps you learn how to resist the temptations that actually matter.

This isn’t quite what fasting has always been about. The Bible is full of people covering themselves in ashes and dressing in sackcloth as a sign of repentance, in the hope of propitiating an angry God. The Puritans who once inhabited the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared numerous “days of humiliation” and fasting to try to turn away God’s wrath in times of war or sickness or particularly cold winters. (Do you think that would work, actually? I’m willing to try it.) We’re less inclined to see fasting as a way to bring God’s favor on our society, and maybe more inclined to see it as a self-improvement project: my favorite example of this being, of course, the Today Show headline that referred to Lent as if it were a new fitness program: “Mark Wahlberg’s 40-Day Challenge.”

But as we prepare for the season of Lent to begin, we might consider the same question that God asked through Isaiah almost 3000 years ago: “Is such the fast that I choose?”

The prophet Isaiah lived in the 8th century BC, at a time when the ancient Israelites were divided into two rivaling kingdoms, north and south. In Isaiah’s day, the northern kingdom was on the verge of being destroyed by the Assyrians, and the southern kingdom, where Isaiah lived, was under threat as well. It was a time of chaos and crisis. And while the stories and prophecies in the first half of the book describe Isaiah’s response to the crisis—his advice to the kings and his rebukes to the people—the later prophecies address what would happen in the future, even after Isaiah’s death: the eventual destruction of the southern kingdom; the decades of exile endured by those who had been kidnapped and taken to Babylon as prisoners; their eventual liberation and their return home to Jerusalem.

Today’s reading is about that period of restoration, which is a work in progress. The people have managed to endure destruction and exile, and they’ve returned home, but their “ancient ruins” have not yet been rebuilt. (Isaiah 58:12) There is still a literal breach in the city wall that needs to be repaired. And like those old Massachusetts Bay colonists, the people have turned to God for help. They’ve humbled themselves and bowed their heads; they’ve covered themselves in sackcloth and ashes. They’ve spent long days in fasting and in prayer. And as things fail to improve, they’ve asked God, “Why do we fast, but you do not see?” (Isaiah 58:3)

And God answers them with these words: “Is such the fast that I choose? … Will you call this a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 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?” (Isaiah 58:5-7) If you do these things, “then,” God says, “your light shall break forth like the dawn.” (Isaiah 58:8)

We sometimes think of life in little independent slices: our spiritual lives, and our family lives, our work lives; our sports and our hobbies and our political views. But God sees our lives holistically. If the people of Judah want to ensure God’s favor, Isaiah says, then they can’t focus exclusively on fasting and ritual and prayer; God wants to know how they treat their workers, and whether they feed the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Their relationship with God is not one slice of the pie: it is the crust, that holds and gives shape to all the rest.

The fast that God chooses isn’t about how each one of us relates to God, by bowing down our heads in worship or repentance. And it isn’t about how we relate to ourselves, by understanding our own internal dynamics of temptation and willpower. It’s about how we relate to one another. If we look at things through the lens of the Two Great Commandments that Jesus extracts from the Torah, we might say that God’s problem with the people is not that they aren’t loving God with all their heart and all their soul and all their mind; it’s that they’re not loving their neighbors as themselves. (Matt. 22:37-39) It is impossible to follow the commandments of God if you will not share your bread with the hungry; it is an act of “rebellion” to worship God but not respect the dignity of every human being. The people can return to Jerusalem, but if they do not if they do not care for poor, then their society will be never truly be rebuilt.

But there’s very good news here. God doesn’t ask the people to change the world: he asks them to change themselves, and if they do, then “[their] light shall rise in the darkness and [their] gloom be like the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10) They will truly be the “light of the world” that they are meant to be. (Matthew 5:14) And this is exactly what Jesus means by the classic images he gives us today. You are the “salt of the earth,” he says, that small portion of the food that gives it its flavor; or maybe preserves it for the future. (5:13) You are “the light of the world,” the small point that illuminates everything around it. You are “a city on a hill,” a community that can be seen by everyone around it, and stands as an example for the world. (5:14) Each one of these sayings is about how something small can affect something big. And the interesting thing is that in each case, while the small thing can’t control the world, it can control itself. You are the light of the world, and you can cover that light up with a basket, or you can take the basket off, and let it shine. You are a city on a hill, and you can organize your life together in a way that inspires the world, or not. Okay, nobody really knows what it means to say that salt can lose its saltiness, but the point seems to be more or less the same.

There are so many things that are not within our control. But there are also many things that are. We cannot control whether there is hunger in the world; but we can share our bread. We cannot stop evil from being spoken in the world; but we can stop pointing the finger ourselves. We cannot end all oppression; but when we see the bonds of injustice, we can think about what we can do to loosen them a bit. This is what it means to remove bushel basket from the lamp; because when we do these things, then our “light shall break forth like the dawn.” As individuals and families, as a church community and a local community, we can’t control the rest of the world. But we can choose to live according to Isaiah’s words; we can choose to be a city on the hill.

So as you prepare for Lent this year, think to yourself: “Is such the fast that [God] choose[s]?” It’s good for us to strengthen our own willpower and to spend time in prayer, and we should do those things in Lent. But that’s not all it means to be a light to the world. What would it mean for you this year to “offer your food to the hungry” or to “satisfy the needs of the afflicted,” (Isa. 58:10) not in a global and total way, but in your own small way? This is the fast that God would choose for us this Lent; and if do these things, then truly “[our] light shall rise in the darkness and [our] gloom be like the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10)