If you can't see the buttons above to play the sermon, chances are you don't have Macromedia Flash installed. To download the components you need,
please visit: www.macromedia.com/downloads.
Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice…
to let the oppressed go free?[1]
In a sense, odd though this may sound, Lent – the chief penitential season of the church year, with its emphasis on prayer, fasting, and self-denial –
is easy. Easy because the idea behind it is natural to us. It’s easy for us to identify with the expectation and preparation of Lent. The coming of
Easter and spring, which generally coincides with Easter, raises our sense of expectation. Even in the age of global warming, we still await the
rebirth of a creation that has lain dormant under the winter snow and cold. Lent is easy. We’re all waiting anyway.
That’s the trouble with Lent. It has become ours. And at the end of our Lent is our Easter, which is precisely the trouble with Easter.
Having made them both our own, they are rendered meaningless.
Because of our sometimes self-centered and always self-interested expectations, Lent can turn into a period of preparation (thank God, only forty-days
long!) during which we pray, fast, and otherwise deny ourselves all for the sake of promoting our health, restoring our peace of mind,
or reviewing and revising our life’s priorities.
Our self-possession of Lent – when we observe it at all – like our self-possession of religion and God are expressions, I think, of a deep seated,
often unconscious, therefore, unexpressed conviction that they all exist to free us from suffering or, at least, from sacrifice. Invariably, in our
self-possession, we are inclined to a selfish view of sacrifice often seeing it, at worse, as a begrudged obligation, an undesired imposition or, at
best, a vaunted demonstration of our power over ourselves, thereby, affirming our essential goodness.
Against these ideas and attitudes stands the prophet Isaiah who declares that we cannot, dare not take a selfish view of sacrifice.
The people to whom Isaiah first spoke had endured a terrible period of enslavement. Now liberated, they have returned to their homeland. But their
hardship continues. The land is in ruins.
The people, seeking God’s favor, sacrifice – practicing the ancient discipline of the fast. But there is no relief. Why? Because their fast was not
one of humility, forsaking food so to empty themselves of that sense that they, on their power alone, could satisfy themselves. No. Their fast –
marked by external displays of humility – masked their hypocrisy as they continued to pursue their own affairs, which included the oppression of the poor.
So, Isaiah declared what is a true fast – genuine sacrifice that has meaning and power.
First, genuine sacrifice is an outward sign of an inward humility. A humility, really, an awareness that we all, even at best, are in need. A humility,
therefore, that issues in practical care for those in greater need (of whom there always is an abundance) – feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless,
clothing the naked.
Secondly, genuine sacrifice is a duty and a privilege whose meaning is declared by the community – and, according to the prophet, by God – and
not the individual. Because all of us always are in need, sacrifice for the sake of others is named and claimed by the community as an essential aspect
of shared life. From a Christian perspective, it is in the symbol of the cross that we see our true reflection. The cross – that sign that the God who
shares life with us in Jesus extravagantly, profligately sacrifices the life for us. So, as the life of the community, as the life of the God revolves
around the principle of sacrifice, when we engage in sacrifice, we are moving in time and in tune with the rhythm and melody of the universe.
Thirdly, genuine sacrifice is a sign, according to the prophet, of, “a day acceptable to the Lord.”[2]That day when
the will of God, the right ordering of life in this world is achieved. That day when love triumphs over hatred and justice over inequity. Will that
day ever come? I don’t know. Nevertheless, that day, I believe, has been at the heart of all human hoping from the time creatures, conscious of their
mortality and brutality longed for a better day, and will be at the heart of all human hoping until the time that we hope no more, for we are no more.
And genuine sacrifice, whenever it occurs in historical time and space, is a sign, however momentary, however fragmentary that that day has dawned.
This, my sisters and brothers, is a basis of our Lenten expectation and preparation. Not our struggles to do what is best, even right for us to promote
our health and healing, to restore our peace of mind, or to review and revise our priorities.
No. The expectation is of new life made holy hope and holy hope made new life. The preparation involves our responding affirmatively to the claim of the
community, our joining the movement of the universe, our saying, “Yes!,” to the call of God to sacrifice, especially for those in greater need.
So, let us think and pray long concerning our Lenten observance. Not only the form, whatever that may be for you or me, but also the motivation and
the intention.
The reward is great. No less than our feeling the pulse of the heart of the community, of life, of God. So, in the language of Isaiah, let us endeavor to:
Share our bread with the hungry,
Shelter the homeless poor, and
Clothe the naked.
In other words, hide not ourselves from our own flesh in the bodies, the lives of our sisters and brothers around us.
Then shall our light break forth like the dawn,
And our healing shall spring up speedily, for we shall know ourselves not only as we are, but also as we always have been meant to be.
[1] Isaiah 58.6. The Hebrew scripture appointed for the day is Isaiah 58.1-12.
