The Sunday Sermon: March 6, 2022 – First Sunday in Lent
Scripture: Isaiah 58:5-9a
The Fast I Choose
I’m going to do something I’ve rarely done in almost twenty-three years of preaching. It’s the first Sunday of Lent, so I’m shaking things up a bit. I’m going to read our scripture passage before starting my sermon message. So, listen for the Word of God …
Read Isaiah 58:5-9. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Now, you’re going to have to remember that. We’ll get back to it, but don’t forget it.
It’s Lent, the first Sunday of Lent. We began another season this past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. We have this Sunday and five more Sundays in this season. Continuing with our deep dives into Biblical Practices for Faithful Living, we are going to be hearing more about Spiritual Disciplines this Lent, and how practicing them may provide more space in our lives to “keep better company” with Jesus. So, we’re going to – surprise, surprise – follow Jesus this Lent.
As I looked back last week on the Lenten seasons of our past, I was reminded that every year during this time we try to “keep company” with Jesus. We follow him through one or more of the Gospels as he turns, first his face and then his feet, toward Jerusalem. We meet the people he meets and heals and admonishes on his way. We listen and learn from his teachings, all the parables and blessings. We walk with him into Jerusalem, itself, as he rides on that donkey, taking off our coats and laying down our palm branches on the final Sunday of Lent. We sit with him in an upper room for our last supper together before betraying him like Judas, denying him like Peter, and deserting him like … everyone else. We “keep company” with Jesus in more intentional ways every year during Lent.
But this year, we won’t be following where he goes as much as we will be following what he did – throughout his life. We’re following him in the disciplines he used to help him “keep better company” with God. He fasted, he prayed, he listened to God, he embraced simplicity, he withdrew from the world when needed, and as he did all these things, he discovered more ways of “keeping company” with God. We are going to do the same. Ashia, Andrew, Patrick and I will join our voices this season, as we did during Advent, to listen and share how the Spirit of God speaks to us so that we may share with you how we may “keep better company” with Jesus on our Lenten journey this year and in our lifetime’s journey. First up: Fasting.
Our guide through all of these spiritual disciplines this Lent is Lynn Baab, a Presbyterian minister, writer and teacher living in New Zealand. She wrote the foundational essay and the Sunday school lessons that accompany the worship liturgy and music, and that inspire the sermon messages this year. (Quick aside: if you’re not attending those Sunday school hours, you really should be. You can join in via Zoom if you can’t, or don’t want to, make it to the campus. We end at ten and no one lives more than half an hour away. Join us. Call it a spiritual discipline.) Anyway … Lynn Baab writes this about our spiritual discipline for this week:
“Fasting is a practice that creates space and time for intentional spiritual growth by setting aside something else for a period of time … Fasting, whether from food or other things that ensnare us, can help us restore balance. Fasting plays a role in all major religions … (and) Christian fasting creates space in our lives so that we can “keep company” with Jesus.”
Creates space by setting something else aside for a certain period of time, say … forty days, not counting Sundays.
Now, here’s where you have to remember. I told you to remember the scripture reading I uncharacteristically began this time of proclamation with. Does anyone remember it? Kind of … sort of … ? “Is not this the fast I choose …” Right? Okay, so following Baab’s description of a fast, what does God say through the prophet Isaiah that we must give up, set aside, to make room for something else? What in our scripture reading does God say we have to give up? (A second quick aside, and another shameless plug for Sunday school attendance: if you were in that class this morning, you would know the answer to this question.) Nothing.
God’s fast, spoken through Isaiah’s writing, says nothing about giving anything up to create a space to do something else for a specified amount of time. The fast that God chooses is for a lifetime. And the “things” that go into fasting as God chooses isn’t a list of things we should “give up.” But a list of things we need to “take on.”
The words of Isaiah, the fast that is pleasing to God, doesn’t seem to fit Lynn Baab’s definition. She says a fast includes something we choose to give up. Isaiah’s words are all about “doing something,” not refraining from doing something. We have to dig a bit deeper in this passage to discover what it is we’re supposed to be giving up and setting aside. So let’s do it. Page 688 in the Old Testament section of your pew bible if you want to follow along.
First: The fast that God chooses includes “loosing the bonds of injustice.”
If we’re called to “loose the bonds,” what does that mean we have to “give up and set aside?” We must “fast” this season from anything that creates or tightens the bonds of injustice. What are we doing in our lives, this season, right now, that is unjust? If we can’t think of anything that we, personally, are doing, then we need to think about what groups, structures and systems we are a part of that are tightening the bonds of injustice anywhere and stop being a part of those groups, structures and systems. Easier said than done, but … such is the fast that God chooses. Loose the bonds of injustice.
Second: The fast that God chooses includes undoing the “thongs of the yoke.” Again, if we’re called to “undo the thongs of the yoke,” what does that mean we have to give up and set aside? We must fast this season from all of the ways that we tie others to ourselves in order to bend their actions to our benefit. To “undo the thongs of the yoke” means to work for and offer freedom and release to all people who have been used for someone else’s gain, perhaps even our own. In fact, Isaiah goes even further in this part: We need to refrain from oppression altogether, in any and all of its forms. We are not only to “undo the thongs of the yoke,” but to “break every yoke.” Our fast this season is not only to give up from our acts of oppression, we must stop ourselves and everyone else from exploiting another for our gain – break every yoke.
You’ll have to dig a bit deeper, and be a lot more vulnerable, to discover the ways in which you are being unjust, “yoking” others to your benefit, and oppressing them. We like to think we get all this and we’re past doing these things. Dig deeper. We are culpable. As you engage this week, it may help you to go back and read the first four verses of Isaiah’s fifty-eighth chapter. Isaiah’s congregation thought they were doing alright. They were wrong, too! I’ll leave that deeper exploration to you this week. There’s more we need to “fast from” in the verses we have before us, first. And maybe these are more accessible to you.
God says we must share our bread with the hungry. If we’re called to “share our bread,” what does that mean we have to give up and set aside? We must fast this season from our almost innate need to hoard what we have and give only from our excess.
God says we must “bring the homeless poor into our houses.” What does that mean we must give up and set aside? We must fast this season from ignoring all those who are sitting right in front of us with no roof over their heads, no protection from the storms of life – think wind, rain, and natural disasters, but think also of human social policies that favor the wealthy, systemic racism, and structural greed.
God says we must “cover the naked.” Our fast, then, is from anything we do that allows anyone to experience an indignity or vulnerability that treats them as anything less than a child of God.
God says we must not “hide ourselves from our own kin.” This season, we must stop ignoring our brothers and sisters, all around us, who are hungry and homeless and naked.
What does this fast look like … practically … for you? Ceasing from unjust living and using others for your benefit; giving up the greed that keeps others hungry, homeless, and un-clothed; letting go of the inward focus that allows you to “hide” from those in need all around you. Only you know what changes need to be made in your daily life to “fast the Fast that God chooses.”
We have a lot of fasting to do this Lent. We have a lot of clearing out and cleaning up that needs to be done in order that we may more fully and faithfully “keep company with Jesus” this season. And when this season is over? Our sacrifices must become our lifestyle. Our fast must become our way of life. What we’ve given up for Lent – our role in creating and perpetuating injustice, in binding others to ourselves for self gain, our greed, our blindness, our apathy, and our disregard – we must give up for good. Then …
Then, our light shall beak forth like the dawn, and our healing shall spring up quickly … and the glory of the Lord will surround and protect us.
We have a lot of fasting to do this season. We’ll start it this year with our common feast: A small piece of bread and a tiny cup of juice to remind us of the feast that is ours when we choose the fast of God. Let us sing and sing, offer our prayers, and prepare ourselves for the Table.
Amen.
Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor
Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / March 6, 2022