Isaiah 58:1-12

Often in my childhood growing up in a Pentecostal and Charismatic setting I heard teachings that connected faith with prosperity.  Somehow, if I had the right amount of faith and I never really knew how much was really enough, well then I could obtain health or wealth.  Having enough faith also included having one’s relatives saved.  And I see where these ideas come from in the scripture as the Bible often uses the words faith in connection with healing and the supplying of our needs.  But something always seemed a bit off for me. 

I remember as a small child the elders in my church telling my mother that if she had enough faith, well then her husband would return to the family and all would be well.  And then as children we were told that children have a much purer faith than adults so perhaps they should do the praying especially for hard stuff like praying one’s father back to God and to the home. My mother had incredible faith.  She remained true to God in spite of living through a challenging affair, a divorce and raising and supporting 4 children on her own.  We faithfully went to church connecting our broken little family to the larger family of God.  She had great faith—or perhaps it could be better called tenacity or even loyalty.  Even though life did not turn out the way she had planned the Lord was present with her.  Every little blessing was received with gratitude.  When garage sales yielded just the right item—shoes or clothes for school, that side table–my mother would always say, “that was the Lord’s provision.”  And we would happily continue on our way.  Her faith was strong and practical and the Lord did provide for our needs. 

Even though my family was somewhat poor, and my mother worked hard as a LPN, she was usually the first one to serve the poor.  Maybe because she had been there or maybe because the Spirit within inspired her to serve others.  Whatever the case, she was the one holding baby showers for teen moms and bringing food over to those who needed it.  While she did not march with King, or protest, she was tuned in to the cries of the poor and the broken and the wounded. 

Justice was being there for folks when they needed someone.

As I learned more about the Bible and began to interpret more holistically, Isaiah 58 became more alive connecting justice with the flourishing life.  Instead of faith being linked with prosperity, I believe that the Bible links justice with flourishing.  And that when the Bible speaks about the righteous prospering, it’s not about faith (as certitude) but about faith (as union with God) and living righteously toward others.  Often being righteous is similar to being a person of justice in the Bible.  

In Isaiah 58 the prophet is calling God’s people back to the Torah life which is the kind of living that produces the flourishing life.  It’s not a formula in which if we give to the poor, then we will reap benefits of some sort.  The flourishing life comes from an other-centeredness that results in flourishing for everyone.  Those who seek justice flourish right along with those who receive justice.  This is exactly the opposite of the world’s view that in order to survive, we need to grab life for ourselves and point fingers at the ones in poverty–because if they only worked harder, they too would flourish.  

There are a number of points Isaiah makes to God’s people about fasting that can help us grasp the link between justice and flourishing.

1. If we do all the worship and religious activities, but exploit our workers, and use violence our fasting is hollow.

Our worship activities that we feel are so important ring hollow to both God and others when we fail to live with justice and compassion for other human beings be they employees or neighbors.  Even the Apostle Paul says that if we do all of the religious activities–sacrifice our bodies, etc and not have love, we are like a clanging gong–irritable to those who hear it.  I wonder how often our preaching, speaking, singing and writing feels like a clanging gong to those who long to see genuine justice among us.  

2.  Will our voices be heard in prayer when we continue to exploit others and use violence?

I wonder often if we don’t have the same kinds of healing today that we read about in the Bible, because of the ways people are exploited by those who say they follow Jesus.  I have observed that there are more healings taking place among the poor and disadvantaged than in our own nation.  Could it be that without resources, God is compassionate toward the vulnerable and hears their cries for healing?  We often say it is because of rationalism and that’s a fair charge but could it have something to do with our nationalism?

3.  The kind of fasting God has chosen is: to do away with the chains of injustice, to untie the chords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke. 

Growing up in the individualistic paradigm, I thought it had to do with spiritual oppression but in this text, it is much more practical and literal than I had previously thought.  Isaiah is not suggesting that we go and lay hands on possessed people so they might be delivered from demons.  He is suggesting according to the context, that the kind of fasting God has chosen is to liberate others from oppression and injustice.  It includes demonic but sometimes I think we miss the demonic forces that create injustice because we are so focused on delivering individual people from demons.  We are a world possessed by evil when human beings are exploited in the name of profit or we make war in the name of peace.  We are in some sense possessed by the dark forces of this world when we buy in to it’s ways and give in to it’s hungers.

4.  The kind of fasting God has chosen involves feeding the hungry, providing clothing for the naked and offering shelter to the wanderer—and to not abandon one’s own children. 

Again, these kinds of offerings to the Lord are very practical and seem quite unspiritual.  Could the wanderers be the homeless or the immigrants or the refugees?  It’s curious that fasting is connected to providing food for others.  Could it be that we might choose to give up some of our own wealth so that others might have opportunity to eat.  

5.  Then, when God’s people have done the fasting of righteousness… the healing will come.

What does Isaiah mean by healing?  I think it has to do with both physical healing and the healing of relationships—reconciliation.  Healing has to do with that which is broken in the world—that which makes for oppression and exploitation will be healed.  And we will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.  Which of course in a desert is a big deal.

This writing by Isaiah is a picture of what God desires for his people and how he desires for them to live.  He knows that when people are liberated and fed and cared for, then everyone will flourish.  Isaiah is drawing an enormous picture for us reminding us that the flourishing life is not about wealth and power and status in the eyes of the world.  The flourishing life is what happens when God’s people come out of darkness into the light of God and see how the ways of the world are creating more and more brokenness among us. 

The prophet is calling us to turn from those ways and engage in true fasting, true worship, true religion and join God in doing the work of the kingdom.  Then all will flourish and the land will be healed. 

Time and time again, God’s people fall into the same old habits and consider their practices of worship in the church building, their daily devotions to be what God desires… and I’m not knocking those practices.  But they ring hollow exposing us to how we are yet influenced by the world.  We can worship in the sanctuary with hands lifted high emotionally connecting with God and be fully unaware of all the exploitation and the ways in which we are complicit.

I feel that I am living in a time when we are more concerned about whether or not we can say “Merry Christmas” or  whether we maintain cultural dominance than we are concerned about Black bodies, hunger, children separated from their families, refugees, immigrants, the unborn and trafficked human beings.  We use the pointing finger and the malicious talk to avoid responsibility for our own sin and then bask in our Sunday morning worship services with hands lifted high.  It feels hollow, especially to those who are on the receiving end of our exploitation and to those who are looking for something more genuine.