Trying To Get God’s Attention

Has someone ever ignored you while you tried to get their attention? Isn’t it a bit frustrating?

Well the people in Isaiah 58 are frustrated with God. They’re saying, “Hey God, how come when we fast and make sacrifices, you don’t see it or acknowledge it? What are we, chopped liver?”

God, of course, has actually been noticing them all along and definitely has a response for them.  God says, “On the days when you do the so-called fasts and sacrifices, you’re not actually changing your lives and practices. You don’t treat your workers well and your days end in fighting and bitterness. You call that a tribute to me?”

In modern terms we’d call that kind of fasting, prayer and sacrifice performative. Meaning: it looks good but it doesn’t really change anything.

God then serves up a mic drop moment in scripture and says, “If you really want to honor me:

release those bound unjustly,
Set free the oppressed,
break every yoke;
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothe the naked when you see them,
and turn not your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed

Growing up catholic, I NEVER heard this reading as part of our Lenten commitments. I’m sure it was read to us, but I never really heard this preached. I was taught to give up candy or TV or to not eat meat on Fridays. All sincere gestures. But they didn’t really change much. 

I’d also encourage you to notice the sequence that God proposes in this passage. God says, “IF you do all these acts of justice…THEN your light shall break forth…and your wound will be quickly healed.”

The acts of justice come first. Then the light breaks through and the healing happens. So many of us want it the other way. We want the light and healing first and then we’ll get to the justice part.

And just to be clear, the healing that God is speaking about in today’s reading is that of social healing. It’s not that God is not interested in or concerned with personal healing. It’s just that God knows that our personal healing is intimately tied in with social healing. We can’t be individually “well” in a sick world.

You may have heard of the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) that are part of our emerging medical understandings. Some estimates say that as much as 80% of our level of health is determined by social factors like: income, education, housing, neighborhood safety, discrimination, etc. Inequity in these areas makes people sick. This is exactly what Isaiah 58 is speaking to. God recognizes that there is a pervasive social woundedness and invites the faithful to become active agents in the repair of the world. This heals all of us.

So it doesn’t seem to mean much to God if you pray every day and then go and exploit people (or support exploitative systems). It doesn’t seem to mean much to God if you give up social media and then turn away from meeting the material needs of people living without the basics. It doesn’t seem to mean much to God if you don’t eat meat on Fridays and then do nothing to address racism and sexism and the ongoing violence against the LGBTQ+ community or people with disabilities.

Just in case we don’t get it from the first reading, the gospel from Matthew 9 makes it pretty plain. John the Baptist’s disciples notice that Jesus’ disciples aren’t fasting and ask, “Wait, why not?” Jesus answers with a bit of a cryptic response, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”

But if we go back to the list provided in Isaiah 58 – release those bound unjustly, set free the oppressed, share your bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless; clothe the naked and don’t turn your back on folks in need –  we see that Jesus is doing and embodying this very kind of fasting. That’s why he doesn’t feel the need to “give anything up.” He’s already doing the kind of fasting that God is asking.

As we move through our Lenten season, let’s be sure that our practices help us engage in the actions that Isaiah 58 speaks about so that our light may shine and our world may be healed.