Listen

Isn’t this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke? Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family? Then your light will break out like the dawn, and you will be healed quickly. Your own righteousness will walk before you, and the Lord’s glory will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and God will say, “I’m here.”

Isaiah 58:6-9a

Think

It is important to remember that God is with us each moment of each day, ready to listen and to help. However, the prophet Isaiah calls us to remember something different, something challenging: It is only after we have set free the mistreated, smashed the societal chains that bind us, shared our bread with the hungry, clothed the naked, housed the homeless, and returned to our families that God will heal us. It is only after we engage in these acts of justice and mercy that God will answer us when we cry for help. When justice is embodied, it is only then that God will say, “I’m here.”

Ouch. It sounds harsh, but it is true: God is most fully realized where people are free. If a person is oppressed or bound up in poverty, that person is not free — and neither are we. With the amount of injustice and poverty around us, it seems like God may never be fully realized. But, perhaps, it just means we will have to rely upon the wisdom of God even more closely to uphold us in all the work we have left to do.

Erin Spengeman Hutchison

Pray

Wise God, help me to seek your wisdom so that I can engage in justice, set free the mistreated, share my food, meet the needs of the poor, and smash the societal chains that bind us all.

Amen.

Go

As you go today, remember that God is ready to share wisdom.

Reach out your hands and accept it.