Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Today’s Lesson comes from Isaiah 58 verses 1 through 10:
58:1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.
58:2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
58:3 "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.
58:4 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.
58:5 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?
58:6 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?
58:7 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, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
58:9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
58:10 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.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent and the beginning of the 40 days set aside for reflection, penitence, and prayer leading up to Easter. This is the time for personal and communal examination and change.
The Prophet Isaiah is given to us today because he’s serious about change. Ash Wednesday is a day for public acts of contrition. Many of us wear ashes on our foreheads as signs of repentance. But Isaiah won’t let us stop there. He’s interested in what’s going on behind the ashes — how we think about one another in our heads and also our hearts.
“See . . . notice,” he says.
In other words, look around at your neighbors. Talk with them. Cross the tracks. Cross the aisle. Get to know somebody with a very different opinion from yours. Get to know somebody with a very different lifestyle, of a different race or class. Invite a poor person and their family into your life. See if you think what we’re paying them is enough to make ends meet.
Ash Wednesday is a fast day. That’s fine; ashes are fine. But the true fast goes beyond a single day and is more than skin deep.
The true fast is one of transformation — ours, and that of our community. And that can’t happen without us first looking, and noticing , and getting involved.
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