Isaiah 58:1-12 (NRSV)
Read Isaiah 58:1-12 on biblegateway.com
Chapter 58Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Verse 2Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
Verse 3"Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Verse 4Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Verse 5Is 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? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Verse 6Is 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? Verse 7Is 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?
Verse 8Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Verse 9Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, Verse 10if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. Verse 11The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Verse 12Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
Devotion
The meaning of Isaiah’s oracle could not be plainer. God says that pious practices, uncoupled from national righteousness, are nothing less than rebellion on the part of the people. Fasts, public lamentation and all religious behaviors, when rooted in self-interest and financed by oppression, are mute prayers. On the contrary, the fast that God finds acceptable and the righeousness that God seeks is this: to loose the bonds of injustice and to set the oppressed free. Hunger, homelessness and material need are unacceptable and incompatible with God’s will. All that is plain. What is unclear is how we, who name Jesus as Lord, can be quiescent when 1.35 million children in North America are homeless, 17.4 million families (about 50 million people) were too poor to buy adequate food last year, or when the poor die on our doorsteps for lack of medical treatment.
Prayer
Use us, O Lord, to let your light shine through us as we act for those things you have declared are right and in accord with your will. Amen.