One of the texts that often surfaces during the season of Lent is Isaiah 58:6-7: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter; when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” This passage is part of a longer text (Isaiah 58:1-14) that describes false and true worship. It reminds us that in a season where we talk a lot about fasting and self-denial that God is looking for something positive from us –love and compassion. Now, that doesn’t mean that self-discipline and fasting and self-denial do not have their place. Often they are necessary to get us to stop and look at our lifestyle and those things that we have become addicted to that keep us from growing in our relationship with God and one another. But what God really hopes we will learn during this time is to love – to love God, love ourselves, and love others.
I am pretty sure that these words and the whole of the passage would not have been a big hit with most of Isaiah’s temple going audience; especially, with those who were going through the motions of religion and focusing on the externals or the pious actions hoping to get God’s attention. In fact, it is words like this that many scholars feel probably got Isaiah killed.
In this passage and the whole chapter, Isaiah doesn't beat around the bush, he says clearly that God prefers another kind of fasting, another kind of religion – one which changes our actual lifestyle and not just punishes our body. There is a very clear demand here for social justice, non-aggression, freeing the oppressed, letting go of malicious speech, sharing our substance with the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, among other things. This is no privatized faith – no “just Jesus and me” religion. It reminds us very much of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25: 31-46.
The purpose of all spiritual disciplines is to create space in our lives for God and to allow God’s will to be done in our lives and through us in the world. They enable us to know the spirit of Christ and to be tuned in to his heart.
Dr John Henry Jowett, a great British preacher of a generation ago, told the story of a young servant girl who had no formal education, yet was deeply spiritual. She had a strong sense of compassion, a concern for people.
When Dr. Jowett visited with her one day and asked how she spent her days, she said, “My work is very demanding, and I don’t get much time off, so I can’t serve the church as much as I would like. But I have come up with a plan that lets me do what I can.”
“What is that?” asked Dr. Jowett.
She replied, “Well, I always take the daily paper to bed with me at night.”
Dr. Jowett was puzzled. “Tell me about that. I don’t understand.”
“Well,” she said, “I read the page with the birth notices, and I pray for the babies that have been born; then I read the marriages, and I pray that they may be happy and true; and next I read the deaths, and I pray that God’s comfort may come to those sorrowing homes.”
That young girl had discovered the spirit of Jesus and was tuned in to his heart. Why? Because she had learned caring and compassion; and Jesus called compassion, love, caring the most significant sign of discipleship. In John’s Gospel, he said it like this: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples” (John 13:34-35). Jesus not only taught compassion, he lived it. As you read the Gospels, over and over again you can see the heart of Jesus immediately zeroing in on the neediest person in the crowd.
One of the things that strikes me about this story is the simplicity of the young girl’s caring. She didn’t engage in “great works”, she just cared and this caring led her to prayer and doing what she could. What about us? Compassion is touching someone with a warm word; lifting someone’s spirit with a genuine smile; it is engaging in concrete actions, standing by someone who is standing alone. Compassion/love is a tangible expression of having come to know God. 1 John reminds us: “We love because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Maybe this is something that we can work on this Lent.
Blessings.
