Isaiah 58:1-12 Commentary

Because I prepare about a month early, I am reading these words against the backdrop of ICE raids, of terrorized people and extrajudicial killing in detention facilities and on the streets of Minneapolis. As I settled into my seat to review the text before diving into commentaries, I read these words and my body tensed, as though alerting me: this is about to get real.  I heard Isaiah’s disdain for showy religion, for assuaging our complicity in unjust systems with a pious veneer, I heard Isaiah call out quarrelsomeness among the people of God, each assuming their kind of fasting is the better one.  And then this clarion call: “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?”

If you, like me, are ministering in a US church context and if you chose to preach this text (which I hope you do), then you might want to warn the people in your pews: strap in, followers of Jesus Christ, if we truly believe in the authority of Scripture, it’s about to get real in God’s house today.

Keep it Simple

When the demands of this passage slap us in the face and seem all too relevant to the state of our country and our churches, it can be easy to try to soften the impact.  Please don’t. Isaiah 58 is proclaiming a true and straight-forward word. Softening it or making it say something less than it says undermines the authority of Scripture itself.  To that end, it can be best to be remind God’s people that God’s Word says what it says and one of the best commentaries for that purpose is a Children’s Study Bible. No room for prevarication here (largely because the audience doesn’t understand the word.)

I’m partial to The NIV Kid’s Visual Study Bible published by Zondervan.  Here’s what it says about the trouble identified in this text: “Though they fasted, they did it in an attempt to get God’s blessing. But they continued to behave in ways that dishonored God, such as arguing and mistreating their workers. So their fasting was hypocritical because their hearts and attitudes were not right.”  And here’s how the Study Bible summarizes God’s expectations: “God expected that they would seek justice, free the captives, share with the poor and provide clothing and protection for those without clothing or places to stay.” Can anyone survive that scorching bluntness and think, “yeah, I’m doing alright at this”?

For God So Loved the World

The CEB Study Bible offers this summary of this text, “Devout rituals are meaningless when accompanied by self-serving practices. But fasting from injustice and actively pursuing the interests of those who are socially defenseless—the hungry, oppressed, naked, and homeless—benefits the whole society.” If that assessment is correct, and I wouldn’t have quoted it if I thought it wasn’t, then we are forced by this passage to conclude that God does not only care about the flourishing of souls but of bodies, not just of church members but the whole society.  Is this not an implication of one of our most cherished verses of Scripture, “God so loved the whole world…” Isn’t it the case that Jesus Christ came not to condemn the world but to save it, to redeem it, to—in the last day—make every broken thing whole, every torn thing mended, every lost thing found?  If this is God’s intention for the future, isn’t it also part of our calling now, in the present, by the Spirit’s power?

Rightly Worshipping the God Who So Loves the World

The CEB Study Bible amplifies the fault at the root of this text, “The fact that people continue to act unjustly even on fast days, suggests that religious devotion isn’t causing worshippers to think about their treatment of others.”  In other words, this kind of worship isn’t causing worshippers to think God’s thoughts after Him.  “It isn’t the fast itself that’s in question but the spirit in which it’s carried out. The acceptable fast means refraining from taking economic advantage of others, and instead offering assistance necessary for health and dignity.”  Or, to put it positively, “Generosity toward others results in healing, communion with God, guidance, renewal and restoration.”

Illustration

In 2006, South African scholar of preaching, Johan Cilliers, published his dissertation research, entitled God For Us? An Analysis and Assessment of Dutch Reformed Preaching During the Apartheid Years. He asked: what kind of sermons allow racial supremacy, division, animus and violence to continue?  His purpose was to identify worship that de-forms in order to construct a kind of preaching that re-forms.  One of his key findings was that these sermons centered on moralism. Sermons were littered with imperative verbs—“you need to”, “you should,” “you ought”—often aimed toward individual, familial or congregational piety.  If we are good (or at least present well) then God will be for us. However, argues Cilliers, “evangelical ethics is never conditional and is never based on unreality. It is based on salvific realities in the Gospel, which are not conditional.”

Here’s how this analysis and assessment helps us today:

• Notice the moralism of apartheid-era sermons mainly focused on personal, familial or congregational piety. Nothing wrong with reading the Bible and praying more, caring for one another within the Body of Christ and faithful worship attendance.  However, as Isaiah 58 clearly reminds us, God’s desire for holiness, righteousness and justice extends “far as the curse is found.” To love as God loves is not insular. To love as God loves extends to the very least of these and, if it does not take that shape/character in our lives, we rightly fall under the judgment of Isaiah 58.
• Although this passage is driven by imperatives, it is rooted and grounded in who God is and what God does for us. This is what God cares about: justice, care for the vulnerable, sacrifice that costs us something BECAUSE this is who God is and what God does in Jesus Christ.  We are being invited into union with Christ as we care about what God cares about. Thus, God is not contingent. God invites us to see and love the world as God sees and loves it.