When Fasting Misses the Point

Transcript

Auto-generated from the audio. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

[0:00] So our sermon text today comes from Isaiah 58, 1 through 12, and we're going to start off right away from reading that. So turn with me, if you will, to Isaiah 58, verses 1 to 12. Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet and declare to my people, their rebellion, and to the descendants of Jacob, their sins. For day after day they seek me out, they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.

[0:52] They ask me for just decisions. And seem eager for God to come near them. Why have we fasted, they say, and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed? Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and you exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife and insult.

[1:29] Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you.

[1:45] Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Your fast begins with them having their hands held up for you. Is that what you call a fast? A day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke. Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood.

[2:32] Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear. Then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer. You will cry for help and he will say, here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun scorched land, and he will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age old foundations. You will become the light of the world. You will be called repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets with dwellings.

[4:01] Let's pray. Our God, we ask your blessing upon this word. May you reach into our hearts and minds. May you speak to each one of us today the words that we need to hear. Amen. Each as individuals and as a body. These things we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

[4:33] If you happen to be a very attentive confirmation student, and you've been paying attention to your student workbooks these past three weeks, then maybe after reading along with this chapter, you will wonder what is happening with the timeline in Isaiah. So here is a hint. Actually, I know that the confirmation students are in Sunday school right now. So I also know that the parents are watching. If your confirmation students want Starbucks this week, and you watch together as a family afterwards, pause right here after I ask this question.

[5:21] And on the honor code, confirmation students, you tell your parents if you have an answer to this. Look at your workbooks over the past three weeks, examine the timeline, and if you can figure out that something strange is happening with this timeline, and you can figure out what it was after reading through the few verses that we just read through, and tell your parents. And your parents confirm that with me, then you get free Starbucks. And then unpause after they tell you what it is, and continue the service.

[6:06] Okay. So what is happening with this timeline in Isaiah? Maybe it's wishful thinking. I don't know. Even though, Isaiah himself lived from around the mid 700s BCE, this third section of Isaiah from about chapters 56 to 66, seems to be addressing an entirely different timeline. In fact, it's addressing the post-exilic community in Judah. So this is after the people had, have been dispersed from the Babylonians. And they have already returned, which means it is sometimes after 538 BCE.

[7:03] That is way after Isaiah's life. But the lament over Israel is, and what they view as the central injustice is, that their once great, city, simply is not what it once was. So Isaiah is addressing a very future concern. He is prophesying about something that will happen to Israel, and then prophesying about what will happen when they return, their response to that return, what it will be. And their response is more disobedience. Um, they are lamenting that Israel is not what it is. And in their lament, they become disobedient. So their walls and their temple are in ruins. Their leadership is in disarray. There is poverty. There's a mess that needs to be sorted out. Now, Zechariah 7, three through five tells us that Israel fasted during this time. They fasted on the fifth and on the seventh months for 70 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, commemorating the fact that they had lost their home and their king. They fasted and they prayed, looking for a response from God.

[8:41] So then what is going on with their fasting? And why wasn't God responding? We see in this chapter and really in all of Isaiah, a theme of justice and righteousness. Justice, mishpat, and righteousness, tzedakah.

[9:08] The Israelites believed that a grave injustice had been committed against them, the righteous, by the Babylonians. And then wasn't that just great? Even God did not seem to be hearing them or seeing them upon their return. And so they had to do something to regain his attention. They were fasting with all their might to attract God's notice. And yes, he noticed. But he wasn't responding. It really was not what God had asked of them. They thought that they were filling themselves with righteous behavior.

[9:59] They thought themselves to be so great. And yet they believed they were constantly humbling themselves through this kind of bodily humiliation with putting themselves in sackcloth and smearing ash over their heads and weakening their bodies with fast until they could hardly stand.

[10:26] And verse 2 says, For day after day they seek me out. They seem eager to know my ways as if they're doing the right thing. But all along, of course, this theme of justice and righteousness we see in this chapter, this theme is skewed from the Israelites point of view. It was not the Israelites who were suffering this injustice and shouldering the burden of the righteousness.

[11:06] And there are some, I think there are some mixed sources here. Some people think that it was deliberate, that they were maybe manipulating God on purpose, that they knew they were being unjust and they knew they were being unrighteous. But I actually think that at least some of them were trying. I think that they were trying, but terribly, terribly misinformed.

[11:36] I was a particularly obstinate as a very young child, like a toddler and a very, very young child. I was very obstinate. And I think even today, I'm just a really stubborn person. Like I get an idea in my head and I'm kind of like, I'm going to do this myself. I'm going to go it on my own. And as a very young child, that was especially true. I just often wanted to do things my own way and nobody else's. And I'd get frustrated when it just wouldn't work out. And this is the image that I get of Israel in this chapter. I just keep coming back to this image of Israel as a very young child who's trying to do it on their own and they're simply not in the mood to cooperate or to accept guidance at the moment. But they still want to be commended for their efforts and they still want to be rewarded for having gone on the right path, even though they haven't. And so they're calling out for attention and they're saying, look at how fast we're going. Look at our fast.

[12:57] They're kind of sort of trying, but their stubbornness and their pride is just getting in the way of what God wants to show them and what God wants them to be for the sake of others. In fact, I think they've made a right mess of their own efforts. They've not just made a mess of what God wants their efforts to be on his behalf and on behalf of others, but they've made a right mess of their own efforts. Like even in their actual fasting, they've become destructive. Look at verses three and four. I don't know what's going on there. I think to some degree, maybe like low blood sugar made them get a bit grumpy, maybe. But my feeling is there's something bigger going on.

[13:55] We've become familiar with the term hangry, getting just angry when you're hungry. But I think there's something longer term than that. The exploitation of the workers, seems to be something much longer than just being hangry. It took some planning before the fasting even began. And I think that the fighting that's described in these verses is probably maybe exacerbated by their hangryness.

[14:30] And maybe it was begun over something ridiculous, like who had a more righteous wife than their husband. And I think that's the crux of what's going on. That it's something ridiculous, like I am more righteous than you. And I think that's what's really going on here, is that they've become prideful in their righteousness, in their self-righteousness. Not their God-given righteousness. Not their righteousness in who God has made them to be, or in who God has allowed them to be. But in their self-righteousness. And that is a much deeper situation.

[15:17] And the whole time, God was saying, yeah, I notice you. But this would be a whole lot better if we did this together. And maybe right now, it's not such a great thing that I notice this situation. It is certainly not going to be going to lead to restoration. This fighting and this ridiculousness.

[15:47] Neither justice nor righteousness can happen apart from God. For that matter, no act of worship can happen apart from God. And so there's just more frustration building. Because they're trying to get God's attention so that they can get something from Him. And that's restoration.

[16:17] But they're not going to get something from Him because their worship is flat and senseless. If we were to read just a couple verses further, we'd see that they had abandoned the Sabbath. Which means they were not taking any time to honor or to celebrate the feast with God. Or in God's honor for the blessings He had bestowed on them. Like bringing them back from the exile.

[16:55] And a Sabbath rest from labor for themselves and the laborers who work for them. Along with a Sabbath rest for them. So if we remember how great life for for for for for for for for for for and none of them were abused or exploited.

[17:35] There were laws spelled out in the scriptures taking each of them into account. Those were laws and worship practices that God was longing for from them. The worship God wanted was something practical. The worship that they were giving him was something empty.

[18:05] What they were saying was, this is a thing we will give you. And what he was saying was, I want a real sacrifice. I want you to put your empty words into motion, into action. I want you to show me that your devotion, your devotion means something. I want you to say, I'm not just going to fast, but I want you to say that your fast means something.

[18:41] If you're devoted to me, then you'll know that I love my people. And if you know that I love my people, you'll know that I care about their welfare. And if you know that I care about their welfare, then you'll know that I care about their welfare. you'll do something about their suffering. And if you'll do something about their suffering, then you're not just gonna look at them and say you're gonna do something about it. You're gonna actually do something about it right now. So instead of just smearing ash on your head, go do it. That is the worship God was desiring from them at the moment. And that was not the worship he was getting. Instead, they were breaking all those laws he had commanded.

[19:31] And they were suffering themselves, fighting and angry and frustrated and self-righteous. And they couldn't understand why they were suffering over and over and God was not responding. Is fasting itself bad?

[19:57] Fasting is fine. Actually fasting is very good. Plenty of righteous people fast. Actually righteous. Not self-righteous people. People in the Bible and throughout history have fasted and have been called to fast by God. Jesus fasted.

[20:23] And we should still remember practice various seasons of fasting in our lives. We fast in mourning. We fast in repentance. We fast when we want to enter a time of discernment with God. We fast in times when we are specifically trying to hear from God. We fast simply to get closer to God, but the intention and the heart behind any act of worship is what matters. That is always the difference between worship that smells sweet to the Lord, drawing the worshiper closer to him, or what quite frankly amounts to nothing more than wasted time, or this unfulfilled foul stench of insincerity. The fast of the Israelites had gone wrong. The words of the Lord through Isaiah get a bit sarcastic, and we honestly don't know where exactly their hearts were in the wrong place. We just know that they were. It could be that they were deliberately believing that through their ultra piety, they could manipulate God into doing what they wanted him to do. They could sacrifice something enough to change his mind. They could tell him to bless them.

[22:05] Or maybe it was something that began as a genuine attempt at worship, but they went about it all wrong. And again, I come back to this image of them as a toddler who had just been taken from time out and gone into an excessive state of good behavior.

[22:29] They had been sent into exile. That was their really long time out. And now that they're back, they're going into this hyper state of religiosity so that they can say, look, we're being really, really good. And they're squeezing all the religiosity. They're squeezing all the religiosity that they can and then some into their day because they're going to prove to God that they're being good and don't need to go back to time out. But in the process, maybe they box themselves into this exclusive little corner.

[23:06] And they stopped caring for other people and started caring only for religious practices that they were performing. Whatever they were doing, they got it wrong. And I'm giving examples because we do these things because sometimes it's easy for us to look at the Israelites and be like, they got it wrong. Oh, those Israelites, they always got it wrong. We get it wrong, too. I think I've been guilty of. No, I don't get it wrong. I know I've been guilty of both. There have been times in my life where I've wrongfully strayed into the thoughts that I could pray for one thing or offer another or give such a thing, then maybe perhaps God would bless me in one way or another as a response.

[24:05] And I'm not alone in this. I recall the prayer of Jabez or the gospel of prosperity. This is not an unusual thing where we think if we give, then God will bless us in return. But God is not under such an obligation.

[24:27] God does bless us immensely. God has blessed me immensely. He has heaped blessings onto my life. But it is not because of anything I have done. It is simply because of who he is. So we cannot manipulate God into doing anything, nor could the Israelites have manipulated him through any form of fasting or any form of worship. What God wanted from them was sincere worship of him, sincere worship that included him, sincere worship that led to sincere love of his people, that led to sincere care for his people, that led to sincere help for his people.

[25:29] And then of course, there are other times when I've fallen into the trap of just letting others see my self-righteousness. And I can only cringe at like this extreme teenage, mother-and-child relationship, for some reason. I remember having some great childhood experiences with some great patience for being Christ's light to my family. So I loved to display my religiosity but I didn't love to display Christ's light and I was impatient as a teenager around my family and do you see where those oppose each other? That was what the Israelites were struggling with. They loved to put on sackcloth and ashes and show how ultra religious they were being and lament to God that Israel was suffering but they had no patience for those who were actually suffering. They had no patience for the suffering. We need to be Christ's light. That is our actual act of worship.

[26:52] And in order to do that we need to have God at the absolute center of our worship at all times. A fast that is God honoring will include other people in some way. There should never be a time when our worship of God, fasting or otherwise, hurts somebody else. We need to be God's faithful and faithful to God. But fasting especially should help us to take inventory of how God wants us to respond to the needs of the world around us. For Isaiah and for God, this is the true meaning of mishpat and tzedakah. Justice and righteousness mean that there is absolute wholeness and wellness and restoration for all. For every last person. And we were all interconnected. We are all interconnected within those ideas.

[28:03] Now another theme within Isaiah is the theme of light. We should be familiar with it from Isaiah 9 too. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. Light has some messianic and some eschatological symbolism. In Isaiah we see in 49.6 that the suffering servant was called as a light of salvation. Not just to Israel but to the Gentiles and to all the earth. Isaiah stressed that Israel had been called to be a light for the nations for all nations. But then here in this chapter in chapter 58 we remember we see that they had really become so inwardly broken and inwardly focused that instead of being a blessing to all nations, they had become actually a curse to those around them.

[29:08] They weren't even neutral. At some point in the pursuit of their own agendas, they had become outright cruel. And somehow in the midst of this cruelty, they have made it seem as though they were eager to know God's ways, as if they did what is right.

[29:37] They made it seem as though they wanted to ask God for just decisions. No, God doesn't care about their self-imposed, bodily humiliation or their self-denial or their self-righteousness or what they have deemed as piety.

[30:00] He cared that they cared about the people who were hurting, truly hurting. And he cared that there were people who were hurting when they were in a position to do something about it, but were deliberately not.

[30:31] So if you remember some of our experiences with others for some time for some for for for some some for for for for where you recognize what God wants you to do in this world and mobilizes you to do it for his glory then it was a worshipful fast. Verse 8 says then your light will break free. God challenges us to care for his people. He challenges us to be a light and a blessing to all. But we can't go it alone. Our worship of God is meant to include God always. The Israelites had gotten it wrong because they had tried to please God without consulting him. We can't give God pleasing worship or fast in a pleasing way without giving ourselves over to him. God has made us righteous through Jesus Christ and he wants that righteousness to shine through our lives through godly obedience to his calling in our lives. Whatever that calling may be. But you can bet that that calling is always going to start with him and then include living in true justice to others. And then justice and righteousness are always inseparable whether in the Old Testament or in the New Testament or beyond. Now what is your fasting practice like? We have entered Lent and it's a time when many people give something up as a spiritual practice. That is fasting. And many other people take

[32:49] on a spiritual practice. And if you're not somebody traditionally fasts during Lent that's okay. I think that fasting in general is a good idea at some point in one's life if it's done for the right reasons. Many people do this because it's a good time of the church year to especially contemplate repentance and the journey to the cross. But many others fast during Lent simply because it happens to be Lent. And wherever anyone falls on the spectrum, I think we can all be challenged in this. Our fasting should be a challenge, an invitation to meet with the Holy Spirit and hear where God would like us to respond and care for God's people. And then of course to act in faith and respond to that calling.

[33:52] Let's pray. We pray that you would meet us, that you would show us, that you would guide us, and that you would lead us to the right path. What you want us to hear, what you want us to know. And then help us to rise up to that challenge, to be obedient to your word and your calling in the season of Lent and beyond. These things we pray in Jesus name.