......
You have a colleague at work. You are always very friendly towards him. You greet him with a smile. You ask after his family. You ask what he did over the weekend. You make him a cup of tea. But behind his back, you take the credit for all his work so that you end up getting a promotion instead of him and when times get tough for the company, he is the one who gets the sack.
Is that true friendship?
{Congregation respond }
Of course not. So with Isaiah in our reading today when he talks about fasting:
“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.
4 Look, 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.
5 Is 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?
6 Is 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?
7 Is 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,….
...If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if 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....
...12 Your 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.”
Isaiah is no more criticising fasting than I am criticising smiling at and being nice to your fellow workers in your office. What he is saying is that true fasting has to have something behind it, just as true friendship cannot involve stealing the credit for our colleague’s work.
Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of Lent and many of us will be taking up some form of fasting be it giving up food for a day or giving up chocolate or coffee or alcohol. Or perhaps we are taking something on like going to an extra mass or going to a study group.
These external disciplines are good, but there has to be truth lying behind them. A kiss is a powerful way of saying I love you, but it was with a kiss that Judas betrayed Jesus.
So what is the true inner meaning that lies behind our outward fasting -
Isaiah says
“Share your bread with the hungry”
As a congregation we have given money to support our sister church in Angola. Every harvest we give away to the food bank or a similar charity. One member of our congregation actually works as treasurer to the food bank. We are not the “best religion” in this, but a BBC survey in 2014 found that 78% of practising Christians had given to charity in the last month compared with only 66% of non-religious people (1) While a 2013 survey found that when practising Christians give to charity they give half as much again as non-religious people. (2).
We have {slightly exaggerated voice} much to be proud of ….
...errr whoops, because, Today’s Ash Wednesday - it’s not about being proud. Rather we should look at our co-religionists and think “Am I being as generous as they are?”
You might wonder why when we are about to have a major stewardship campaign in the summer I am talking to you about giving to charity rather than the church. But the truth is, the people who give the most to their church are the people who give the most to other charities and vice versa. Generosity breeds generosity.
Share your bread with the hungry. Martin Luther King said As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made.”
Isaiah says “Bring the homeless poor into your house”
When I was 18/19 I met a man who did precisely that. He had been living homeless on the streets for many years until he found Jesus, got off his addictions and got his life back together. He would open his flat to homeless people. He had nothing valuable - it had all already been stolen. He was incredibly inspiring, but I have not got the courage to do something like that.
But there are 2 families who foster- that too is bringing someone without a home into your home. It’s an incredible ministry. Yet even that many of us would find more of a challenge than we could imagine.
“Bring the homeless poor into your house” - what about this house - God’s house? We all want to welcome people in here when the are the right sort of people, respectable people. people like us. But what about people who are more difficult to get on with?
What about people who barely speak any English who it’s a real struggle to chat with over coffee at mass? What people with mental illnesses who mutter all the way through mass? What about the person with no sense of personal space who leans right into your face every time they talk to you? What about children with ADHD or autism who run around in the middle of mass making a terrible racket. These are the spiritually homeless poor.
Someone has said that today we completely misunderstand hospitality. We think it is about being like Nigella with the perfect food on the table. But Jesus wasn’t concerned about the food on the table. He worried about the people he was welcoming. Hospitality is welcoming the homeless poor into God’s house, even the difficult one.
Pope Francis said "I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security….I do not want a church concerned with being at the center and then ends up by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures….More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus does not tire of saying to us, 'Give them something to eat.'"
Isaiah says
“.If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,”.
It’s true isn’t it - for all of us it’s so easy to criticise, to blame to point the finger” “Oh this would have been great if only Patty had done her job properly.
In one of my past churches there was a lady called Trish who never said a word against anybody. She always pointed out the good. “Wasn’t it kind of Cindy to do that?” “Wasn’t it lovely of Anna to put in all those hours?” “Isn’t that so creative what Barbara did? Isn’t so great that we have people like Bill doing that every week”
It is amazing the difference it makes to have someone like Trish doing that. It lifted the hearts of all and spoke blessing. What can we do not to point the finger but actively to speak blessing to those around us?
Share your bread with the hungry, Bring the homeless poor into your house, remove… the pointing of the finger.
There once was a Methodist Church (I can tell the story like that because it comes from a Methodist preacher). The walls of the church were painted white. Whenever they sang Amazing Grace, the entire congregation turned to face one particular wall. The new minister was curious about this, so she asked people why, but no one knew. Eventually she was taking sick communion to a 96 year old member of the church so she asked him. “Ah” he said, “When I was a boy we couldn’t afford hymn books for everyone, so we painted the words of Amazing Grace on one of the walls. Every time we sang it we turned to face that wall. Over the years the words faded and the walls were repainted, but we still always turn to face that wall.
Isaiah has God ask question “Is this the fast I seek?” As we begin Lent and give things up or take things up, lets make sure that they are not empty shells like that wall that once had a meaning, or a lie like Judas’s kiss of Jesus. Let them be true fasting where the exterior disciplines reflect the inner realities -
Sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the homeless poor into your house, removing … the pointing of the finger
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen
