Readings:
Isaiah 58:1-9; Psalm 51; Matthew 9:14-15

*‘Look, you do business on your fast days,
you oppress all your workmen;
look, you quarrel and squabble when you fast
and strike the poor man with your fist.

Fasting like yours today
will never make your voice heard on high.
Is that the sort of fast that pleases me,
A truly penitential day for men?

Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me
—it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks—
to break unjust fetters
and undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,
and break every yoke,
to share your bread with the hungry,
and shelter the homeless poor,

to clothe the man you see to be naked
and not turn from your own kin?
Then will your light shine like the dawn
and your wound be quickly healed over.*
Isaiah 58:3-8

This passage illustrates very clearly the meaning of fasting. Fasting is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. The end is that we should become more sensitive to the reality of God within us and amongst us, a God of mercy and compassion who loves all his creation. Our lives are to mirror the compassion of God. Fidelity to the covenant does not consist primarily in observing religious fasts and rituals, but in letting God be God in us and through us in all our relations with other people, no matter who they are.

These words of Isaiah are addressed to a very devout people, who pray and fast regularly, but their devotions and their fasting are abhorrent to God because their lives do not correspond to their religious words and gestures.

We read the Scriptures in the belief that through the medium of its message, God is still speaking to us now. Most of us do not have any workmen to oppress, nor go around punching the poor nor holding people captive, but the same was probably true of the majority whom Isaiah is addressing. The prophetic message is never directed to individuals, but always to the nation, and if an individual is addressed, it is only as representative of the nation. So the message today might read:

— Look, you vote in whatever government will give the wealthier among you an extra penny in the pound, paid for by the sufferings of the poor in your midst.— Look, you launch on your fast day a furnace throwing monster, threatening all life on earth.
— Look, you cut down on aid for those nations whose wealth you yourselves have plundered.
— Look, you prostitute yourselves to market forces, neglecting your own homeless poor, and you render the poor person helpless.**

When we look at the problems of injustice, of world hunger, of homelessness, violence, the arms trade, the threat of nuclear defence systems to human existence, we can feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems and our helplessness to effect any change. We need to stay with our helplessness until we realize that we are leaving God out, ‘whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20).

Prayer
God, lover of all that you have created, whose living Spirit is in all, batter down the defences of our minds and hearts with the waves of your compassion, so that surrendering to you, we may be delivered from our imprisoning self-interest into the expanse of your kingdom. We ask you this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.