What Kind of Fast Is This?

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer Oget

Scripture: Isaiah 58:1-7

They had been exiles. You must first understand that. For more than fifty years — a lifetime in the ancient world — they had been second-class citizens, "THOSE people," exiles. For fifty years, they had sat weeping by the rivers of Babylon; then building homes and raising children; living and dying but never forgetting the devastation that had completely annihilated their "home." Yes, they had been exiles. And for those fifty years, through a generation — perhaps even two — the memory had been passed down: "When we go home ... When we get to go home ... Remember, we will one day get to go home ..."

So when they got home, everything had to be just so. Everything had to be done with decency and in order. Committees had to be formed; sacrifices had to be made. The feasts had to be commemorated in just the right liturgical way; heaven forbid you forgot an oil lamp or didn't sprinkle things exactly as the Bible said to sprinkle them. Prayers had to be correctly done, in precisely the right order. Every one of the precepts of the law had to be followed, and woe to the one who broke even the smallest of these. So imagine the indignation of this righteous remnant to hear the prophet's voice calling out like the plaintive sounding of the shofar: People of God, what kind of fast is this?

People of God, what kind of fast is this? I know you think you are righteous. I know you think you are keeping covenant. But open YOUR eyes. Can YOU not see? That man yoked to the mill, grinding your grain like an ox — he who you call your slave, is he not your brother? That woman, gleaning in the field, she who is subject to every taunt and chased away on every hand, is she not your sister? Those who serve you your meals, who work so that you might pray and keep the commandments, are they housed and fed? Are they paid a fair wage? How can you say that you love God whom you have not seen when you mistreat and oppress your brothers and sisters made in the very image of God, whom you HAVE seen? And so I raise up my voice like a shofar, says the prophet. For I must ask: People of God, what kind of fast is this?

Brothers and sisters, you must understand. They had waited their whole lives for this moment: for a chance to stand on holy ground and to build the city of God. They had waited their whole lives, pregnant with the possibility of giving birth to a new people of God, a people who would walk in God's ways and follow God's statutes. They knew that they had been faithful, far more faithful than the people who had not been forced into exile, those who had been corrupted by the ways of the Canaanites, the Samaritans and all of the other corrupt nations. Yes, the people of the land had become a criminal element, untrustworthy and unholy. But THESE exiles had come to set things to right: they had come to bring back the law, the covenant, the Bible and its teaching to God's own land and God's own people. So imagine their horror, when the prophet of Third Isaiah raised his voice calling out: People of God, what kind of fast is this?

People of God, what kind of fast is this? I know that you think you are the righteous remnant, a holy nation, God's own people. I know that you consider yourselves the last of the true believers. But open YOUR eyes. Consider YOUR actions. What is this quarreling and fighting among yourselves? What is this anger and threat, schism and division? Why the finger-pointing and the attempts to define who is and who isn't holy? Have you become the Almighty with the power of the Holy one, to determine who is and who is not part of the covenant? Do you not know that God will bring the foreigner into the temple? Have you not heard that God will count even the eunuch among God's own people? Then what is this quarreling and fighting and raising of the fist? How is this righteous? How is this holy? People of God, what kind of fast is this?

Brothers and sisters, please understand. They had been exiles. Everything they had gotten in exile, any little privilege and any little wealth, all of it had been a gift of God because they had been FAITHFUL. They were the descendants of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel! These were the ones who refused to bow, who refused to stop believing. So, God had chosen to bless them financially and to give them favor with the king. And now they had taken every little thing they had and had poured it into God's holy land. And if God had punished others for their disobedience by making them poor, or hungry; by taking their clothes or their homes; who were they to question the justice of God? And if God had caused others to be sold into slavery because of war or poverty, surely this was not their concern as they strove for holiness. So imagine their confusion and dismay when they heard the voice of the prophet calling out across the nation: People of God, what kind of fast is this?

People of God, what kind of fast is this? I know you think that your wealth and status are your just desserts from God the righteous judge. And I know you think that others deserve whatever they get. But have you forgotten the commandments to give to the poor? Have you forgotten the commandments to do justice to the widows? Did you cause the grain to grow to make your daily bread, that you can hoard it for yourself and not give to others? Did you push the roots of the flax into the ground and push its flower heavenward, or cause the wooly hairs to sprout on the backs of the sheep, that you can claim all clothing for yourself or can walk by a naked sister or brother and not clothe them? Did you indeed create the earth on which you stand, that you can claim the house of earth in which you live as your own? Did not God create it, not just for you but to shelter all those who have no home? Is this your holiness? Is this your righteousness? People of God, what kind of fast is this?

Friends, it would be easy to say, "they didn't get it, but we do." It would be easy to focus on the classism, the pietism, the SELF-righteousness of our foreparents in the faith and say, "Ah, but we know better." But do we?

In this so-called Christian nation, where televangelists sprout on every hand and Christian books can be picked up with your produce in the local grocery store, how do we treat those who work among us? In this Christian nation in which one man took home $53 million 400 thousand dollars OVER his salary this December, can it be true that we barely have the national will to talk about a MINIMUM wage much less a LIVING wage? Can this be a Christian nation when we deny the foreigners among us who cut our lawns, build our houses, tend our children and cook our food, the basic rights to have their children educated and their wounds tended? Do we rely on the labor of others at pennies a day to subsidize our lifestyles, our conferences, our holy gatherings, our T-shirts and tote bags and daily cups of coffee? Sisters and brothers, listen; the prophet's voice sounds again like a shofar — People of God, what kind of fast is this?

Surely, we say, we are not as bad as they are. But how many of us passed the homeless and the food-less in our cars on our way to the airport to come here today? How many of us have closets so full we cannot find room, in cities and towns where people want for clothes on their back and shoes on their feet? How many of us have more rooms than we can inhabit and more space than we can viably clean when there are people who lack affordable, safe housing among us? Perhaps none of you can speak of these experiences, but I confess to you that I experience this daily, every time I leave my safe enclave of home and venture out into the streets of Atlanta, where desperate poverty and unconscionable wealth live side-by-side, while preachers declare that Jesus was a wealthy man who came to bless his followers with wealth from every Christian station on television. And the voice of the prophet haunts me; perhaps it haunts you too: People of God, what kind of fast is this?

Surely, we say, we are less quarrelsome than they are. But are we? We cannot even agree on peace, unity and purity. We fight with one another deep, divisive bitter fights over whether in fact God is sovereign and whether we have any right to dictate to the sovereign God of heaven and earth whom God can call and claim and send out. We call each other names over coffee and drinks, and know for certain that the other cannot possibly be the righteous remnant of God. And all the while, the needs of the world go unmet, our churches diminish, and Christianity becomes a by-word among the generation that sees more liberation, more acceptance of others, and more willingness to live in the diversity of God's world on YouTube and Sesame Street, and in piercing studios and tattoo parlors than in those who SAY they practice the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ. Is it not time for us to hear again the voice of the prophet crying to us: People of God, what kind of fast is this?

For, we would be rebuilders of the breach. We would be restorers of hope to those who have been devastated by floods and dispersion, poverty and homelessness. But tonight, while we are safe in the gentle, reflective darkness of the night, safe to search our hearts and to listen for the leading of God, let us listen again for the loving, pleading voice of the prophet-calling us to awareness, to repentance, to a holiness based in pious justice and righteous mercy. Can you hear the voice of the prophet? It sounds like a shofar in the night, calling into being a new day ... People of God, what kind of fast is this weekend? What kind of fast is this conference? People of God, what kind of fast will this be?