“Investing Ourselves in God’s Own Passion”
Isaiah 58:1-12
What are you like when you are hungry?
Do you get feeling a bit grumpy?
There used to be a Snickers commercial where the main character would be in a really foul mood until they were offered a Snickers bar, after which the tagline was: “You’re not grumpy when you aren’t hungry.”
And it’s true isn’t it?
We tend to act differently when we are in need of a meal or a snack.
Some people describe this condition as being “h-angry”—when your hunger causes you to be cranky and snap at others.
This is also what’s known as the hour between 5 and 6 p.m.--if you live with a toddler.
Generally speaking, we all think of hunger as a problem that needs to be fixed as soon as possible, do we not?
On the flip side, though, some people of faith, down through the ages have used the sensation of hunger to bring a deeper sense of spiritual awareness to their lives.
Lent, is often thought of a season where people fast.
While fasting from food has been the most common kind of fasting, in recent years the idea of fasting has moved to giving up things—such as technology, Facebook, or a favorite t-v show.
And there is nothing wrong with this.
It can, if done in the right Spirit, bring us closer to God.
The problem in our Scripture Passage from Isaiah for this morning is that the people were fasting, but for all the wrong reasons.
They were doing it so that God would reward them, kind of using God like some magic slot machine or being like: “Okay God, I’ll do this for you, you do this for me.”
“I’ll scratch Your back with my fast, you scratch my back with blessings.”
But Isaiah says, “That’s not what it’s about.”
What they are doing is not done in selfless love, it is done for selfish ends.
And, quite frankly, it makes them cranky.
In verse 4 it says, “Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists…”
But it’s also because they are going through the motions of religion, but forgetting the most important things, mercy, grace and love.
Isaiah says, “On the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers…
…you cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.”
Their worship, their religion and particularly their fasting is self-serving and hollow.
They are pretending to be righteous while allowing injustice to occur, or even participating in it themselves.
Isaiah is reminding them that fasting and worship, is not about going through the motions.
It’s not about play acting and fancy shows.
It’s about how they live in the world.
In other words, their worship of God, even their fasting, should make them hungry for something more—breaking the chains of injustice, setting the oppressed free, sharing their food with the hungry, providing the homeless with shelter, clothing the naked, showing compassion for others by what they do.
After all, true worship of God is how we care for the most vulnerable in our midst.
This is an important thing to be reminded of in a time when the church is so often defined by what we are “against.”
And by our quarrelling and fighting over who is in and who is out.
The world sees through this hypocrisy and, rightly, wants nothing to do with it.
In Matthew Chapter 25 Jesus tells us that when He returns “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate [us] one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
The sheep are gathered on the right side of Christ—the side of approval and honor, and the goats on the left side—for condemnation.
And the criteria for judgment may be astonishing for some of us.
Jesus doesn’t ask anyone about their creeds or their standing in the community.
He doesn’t ask them what denomination they are.
But instead: “What have you done for the family down the street?
Ever make any visits to the local jail?
The hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the naked, the physically afflicted, the oppressed, the poor…
…what have we done or not done for them?”
The clear message is that God so intimately identifies with human beings that to care for another person is to care for Him.
To ignore another is to ignore Christ Himself.
And you know what?
Here in Isaiah, God is saying that TRUE WORSHIP—true Fasting is to “doing away with the yoke of oppression and with the pointing finger and malicious talk…”
True worship is “To spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed.”
The Book: “UnChristian, What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity,” contains groundbreaking research from the Barna Research Group.
In a quote from the book it says: “it is clear that Christians are primarily perceived for what they stand against.
We have become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are for.”
It continues: “In our national surveys with young people, we found the three most common perceptions of present-day Christianity are anti-homosexual (an image held by 91 percent of young outsiders), judgmental (an image held by 87 percent of outsiders) and hypocritical (an image held by 85 percent of outsiders).”
That’s a lot of people who feel minimized—or worse—demonized by those of us who love Jesus!
Jesus has called us to be “the Light of the World.”
And Isaiah says that if we concentrate on loving one another: “[our] light will rise in the darkness, and [our] night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide [us] always; he will satisfy [our] needs…
…and will strengthen [us].
[We] will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
When the world sees the Christian Church loving like Jesus—they want to be a part of it.
When they see us fighting, quarreling and pointing fingers—they are repulsed, as is God.
As Christians, we want to believe that what we do is driven by the right motivations.
We might assume we are trying to do the will of God.
And yet, what if Isaiah Chapter 58 kind of hits the nail on the head as far as our current condition?
Famous Pastor Rick Warren is quoted as saying, “regardless of changes in technology, communication, and culture, people still have the same basic needs.
They need love, acceptance, meaning, purpose, forgiveness, dignity, significance.
They struggle with selfishness, fear, guilt, resentment, worry, boredom, loneliness and other universal problems.
And the only solution is Jesus Christ.
And yet, for some time now, the hands and feet of the body of Christ have been amputated, and we’ve been pretty much reduced to a big mouth.
We talk far more than we do.
It’s time to re-attach the limbs and let the church be the church in the 21st Century.”
At East Ridge United Methodist Church we had a Monday Evening Feeding Program, where at 4 p.m., approximately 15 to 20 of us would meet in the gym and make sack lunches to take out to our hungry friends and neighbors.
We mostly took the meals to several extended stay hotels and low-rent apartment complexes in the surrounding community, but we also took some to folks who were living in tent cities and under bridges.
Mary Ellen and I usually went as a team.
I remember one Monday in particular when we were delivering meals to one of the extended stay motels in East Ridge where we would regularly go, and the need seemed greater than ever.
A number of people asked for extra meals.
And all the people were, as they always were, very friendly and thankful for the food.
We knocked on one door and there was a completely naked little kid—maybe 3 or 4 years old standing in the room.
The people, who, I would guess were his parents didn’t act as if this was unusual at all; they just let the kid stand there with the door wide open.
They said, “We are so glad you are here.
We didn’t know what we were going to do for food tonight!!!”
At other rooms, smells that must have been meth or crack cocaine would come out as soon as doors were opened.
This particular hotel has regular prostitution busts.
I remember one room, where a woman and a man had been laying in bed.
The man said he didn’t want any food, and as we started walking away the woman frantically said, “I do,” as she jumped out of the bed and came running for a bagged meal.
Some rooms had families living in them—with 5 or 6 kids.
You never knew what you going to encounter.
Not only was it “eye opening” to take meals to the hotels and homeless in East Ridge but it was a huge blessing.
It really felt as if we were feeding Jesus in East Ridge on Monday nights.
And I soon found it to be a very important part of my spiritual life.
It increased my faith.
It was a means of grace.
If I missed a day, it was as if I had missed a day of interacting with Jesus.
Two years ago, East Ridge United Methodist Church, in coordination with some other churches in the area felt God calling us to start a fully operational Food Pantry.
At first, it seemed impossible.
We didn’t have much money.
And we didn’t have a clue what we were doing.
Now that food pantry feeds 1,000 hungry people a month.
Some people think miracles don’t happen anymore.
But they happen all the time, and when we seek to follow Jesus we find ourselves right in the middle of them.
There is so much need in Red Bank.
There are so many children who go to bed hungry.
85% of the children in our schools are on free and reduced lunch.
There are so many who are addicted to drugs.
There are so many folks living on the margins, in fear, in darkness and despair—without hope.
With a parent and a child, the bond can be so closely bound that the misfortune of one becomes the misfortune of the other, but the bond between Jesus Christ and humankind is even closer than that.
Our gladness and sadness not only effects Jesus; it is actually part of Him.
He is troubled by our sorrows, not from a distance, but in His very heart.
Therefore, when we help one another, we are, in all reality, helping Jesus, and we come to know Jesus through this helping.
Remember in Matthew Chapter 7 when Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven?”
We find the will of the Father in Isaiah Chapter 58.
What better time is there than Lent, to start practicing the kind of fasting God has chosen?
“Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear…
…your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”
May it be so.
In Jesus’ name and for His sake.
Amen.
Throughout the Gospels Jesus is continually healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, touching the lepers, feeding the hungry, showing love to the marginalized.
And we are called to follow His lead.
