1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. The message from God’s Word on this 5th Sunday after Epiphany is taken from Isaiah 58:5-9, it’s entitled, “Real Service to God,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Many words in our daily vocabulary have interesting origins of which we are not always aware. One such word is “breakfast.” Breakfast means literally “to break the fast.” As the first meal of the day, breakfast was the meal at which people who had been fasting would “break the fast.”
3. In our text God speaks through the prophet Isaiah and tells his people Israel to “break the fast.” Fasting had become an important part of Israel’s religious life. In fact, it had become too important. It had become an end in itself. God tells his people to “break” that kind of fast. He then goes on to tell them what kind of “fasting” is pleasing in his sight: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, providing shelter for the needy. Such real acts of service to people in need constitute true “fasting.”
4. Fasting (or any kind of ritual, for that matter) can become an end in itself (Isaiah 58:5). This happened to Israel. It can also happen to us. We can go through the motions of the ritual without realizing the meaning and purpose of the ritual. Such “fasting” can take many forms. “Fasting may be self-indulgence, luxuriating in one’s own feelings, or it may be purely magical in its mentality” (The Interpreter’s Bible [New York: Abingdon, 1952] 680).
5. We sometimes participate in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as magical rituals without ever realizing their true significance. Also, “luxuriating in one’s own feelings” can become the primary concern in worship—a form of “fasting” that needs to be “broken.” Literal fasting may also be done purely for show, something Jesus condemned in Mt 6:16–18. The Abiding Word Lutheran commentary has written, “It is well to be constantly reminding ourselves that ritualism, at its best, is only a medium through which religious impulses are expressed. . . . Incessant care must be exercised that our people do not mistake a feeling of mysticism artificially created by ritualistic externals for genuine, wholehearted worship” (Abiding Word, vol 1 [St. Louis: Concordia, 1955] 239–40).
6. In a small chapel in an Austrian valley, visitors were surprised to see worshipers bowing toward a blank gray wall with crumbling plaster. No one knew the reason for this act of reverence until they began a renovation of the chapel. Then they discovered beneath the layers of paint and dirt a fresco of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child. The custom of reverence, begun with intelligent motivation, continued on through the years by the sheer momentum of habit, even though it had lost all significance.
7. Break that kind of “fasting!” This is the implied message throughout Isaiah 58. “You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high” (Isaiah 58:4b). All of our rituals and programs must be tested for their integrity. If they are of questionable value, we must either revise them or abandon them.
8. Martin Luther wrote: “It would be a good arrangement to observe a general fast for a few days before Easter, before Pentecost, and before Christmas. . . . But on no account dare it be done for the purpose of making it an act of worship or a means of meriting something and reconciling God. But let it be an outward Christian discipline and exercise for the young and simple people, by which they can learn to keep track of the seasons and to make the proper distinctions throughout the year” (Luther’s Works, vol 21 [St. Louis: Concordia, 1956] 159).
9. For years the army had posted a sentry at a particular public park bench. One day a soldier had the boldness to ask why the bench was being guarded. When the records were searched, it was discovered that some 20 years before, the bench had been painted; and a sentry had been posted to keep people from sitting on the wet paint. But for years the ritual had been maintained without people knowing the reason for it. Still today rituals can be perpetuated without knowing their meaning or significance. They should either be explained or abandoned.
10. Just as fasting is not an end in itself, so “breaking the fast” is not an end in itself either: It is rather the means to a new end, namely, to serve the neighbor! (Isaiah 58:6–7). This was the message of the prophets in: Hos 6:4–6; Micah 6:1–8; Ezek 18:5–9; Zech 7:8–10), as well as of Jesus in: Mt 25:35–40). So likewise, St. Paul in Rom 14:3–8 and Col 2:16–23 (also Luther: “Fasting and bodily preparation are certainly fine outward training. But. . . .”).
11. We hear a lot today about “fast food.” Some people become fast food “junkies.” “Fast food” for a Christian is doing God’s will by serving God and the neighbor, even as Jesus did. “ ‘My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work’ ” (Jn 4:34).
12. Article VI of the Augsburg Confession makes a distinction between “religious acts” that have been invented by human beings and those deeds God has commanded to serve the neighbor. History is full of strange acts that humans have invented to impress God, including fasting. The “new obedience,” which flows from knowing that God loves us and has forgiven our sins, expresses itself in acts of love that help the neighbor.
13. Real service to God consists in helping the neighbor in ways large and small. Too often we think of service only in extraordinary terms! Service begins with the little things we do for each other, also in the home. Luther taught us how such common things as scrubbing the floor can be a service to God. He advocated leaving behind the empty rituals of the monastery (including misguided fasting!) for genuine service in the real world. Luther also takes to task those who would say how they would have helped take care of the baby Jesus, washing his linens, etc, had they been present at his birth. Luther tells them they would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem, and that if they really wanted to serve Jesus, “Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve him, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself” (The Martin Luther Christmas Book [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1956] 38).
14. In Matthew 25 the “righteous” are surprised at the king’s verdict. “They can recall no single episode of showing him such charity. Only at the very last are they told that service rendered the needy is service rendered ultimately yet still personally to God. Absent, then, in the righteous is any selfish motivation, the collecting of stars in the crown or heavenly brownie points. No: they serve the needy for no other reason than that they are in fact in need” (Mark Radecke, In Christ: A New Creation [Lima, Ohio: C. S. S., 1986] 78).
15. The result of such service is God’s blessing! “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” (Isaiah 58:8–9). These words speak of the joy and glory of salvation provided by the Lord. They are echoed in Is 60:1: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” In the final words of our Old Testament reading for today God promises his unfailing presence. “Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I” (Isaiah 58:9a).
16. Just as the darkness of long winter nights is giving way at this time of year to the light of longer days, so the darkness of sin and folly must give way to the light of God’s forgiveness and grace in Jesus Christ. In our text God calls us to distinguish between ritualistic “fasting” and a “fasting” that is active in love. We are to move beyond “fast talk”—empty words and actions—to “walking the talk!” We are to offer real service to God. This means that we must distinguish between what is important and what is less important, between what is crucial and what is not crucial. The word “crucial” comes from the Latin word crux, which means “cross.” The cross is the crux of the matter. It is the dividing line between mere ritual and genuine service to others. St. Paul made the cross that dividing line in today’s Epistle lesson when he said: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified!” Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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