NOTES for Isa 58:1-14

This chapter can be read over and over during any fast, and it is unlikely ever to lose its relevance. How convenient it is to give the Lord just a tiny amount, to restrict our culinary preferences temporarily and then rest content. Yet the Lord asks us to give Him our hearts; He asks that we belong to Him completely. He asks not because He wants to take everything from us and appropriate it, but because the one who loves desires complete union with the beloved.

If we are not ready to open ourselves to His love, then we will successfully make even our care for the needy, the hungry, and the oppressed lifeless, or turn it into formal charity merely done for show. But if we are ready, our desire to help our neighbor will become a manifestation of love that demands expression and self-giving, and it will take shape in real deeds. And who knows whether even the little we can give Him will then prove significant, like the poor widow’s mite?