"This is the Fast I Choose" Reflection on Isaiah 58:6-9

As the dust of Ash Wednesday settles, vestiges of another time, we find ourselves on this day wondering if our ashes delight God – a sign of humility and complete submission to the One who created heaven and earth and planted a garden to be our home. The dust of Ash Wednesday seems far from our memory on the threshold of the crucifixion of Jesus. Day after day we seek God, hoping we’ve got it right this time.

In addition to the ashes that marked our foreheads with the words, “Turn away from your sins and embrace the good news” or “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” These are words that frame the season of Lent and we hope that our actions delight God and draw us nearer to God. Throughout the years, we’ve participated in various disciplines that help us experience the fullness of this season. Some of us fast and pray daily, eating only after sunset or before the sun rises. At times we have dutifully put quarters into our self-denial folders, some of us give something up and others eat fish on Friday. Whatever we may do, there is one thing we know for sure that that is at this time of year, more than any other time of year, and participate in a more rigorous spiritual life. And we wonder, does this delight God? Is this what God would have us to do in this season of Lent? 

 

 Amid the ashes of Ash Wednesday, the path we’ve chosen to take as we practice spiritual disciplines we hope delight our God, but the words from the Prophet Isaiah calls us to something different. God does not seem to delight in our ashes, our fasting, fish on Friday, or quarters in our Lenten Self-Denial folder. There is something that pleases God even more. 

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to lose the bonds of injustice?” Where do you see injustice, where is love qualified, shared only with people who think and act like me? What delights God more than fasting, alms giving, a more disciplined spiritual life, or passing up the chocolate for seven weeks, does not delight God if justice is ignored in our communities, our nation, or the world. Is not the fast that God chooses, the fast of injustice? Does God not ask us to “let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke, every yoke” that keeps us or anyone else from knowing freedom. Is this not the fast that God chooses? Is this not what would delight God? When we share our bread with the hungry, provide a safe place for the homeless and the poor and when we share our clothing with the naked, this is what delights God more than anything else. When we succeed in doing these things and when we cry out to the Lord, then God will hear us and say to us, “Here I am.”