NOTES for Isa 58:5

In particular religious traditions the balance between the spiritual and religious components can differ, but only Christianity was not a religion from the very beginning. Of course, over time, its own Christian religions grew on Christian soil. But Christianity itself does not need them. The apostle Paul, for example, while being a Christian in the full sense of the word, remained all his life a determined opponent of identifying Christianity with any religion at all, even with Judaism, which was native to him. Yet it was precisely the Judeo-Christian tradition that was native to the early Christian church.

Meanwhile, religious life in general requires fewer spiritual efforts from a person than spiritual life does. There is usually more outward activity in religious life, and substantially less inward activity. Psychologically, religion is also more comfortable than spiritual life: here there is a familiar ritual, values and patterns of behavior known and generally accepted in the given community, and the feeling of fulfilled religious duty. But in spiritual life there are only questions, usually more of them than answers, especially ready-made answers. Besides, religion also gives a whole heap of occasions for self-assertion.

Ritual prohibitions play a special role here: they separate the "pious" from the "impious," the "righteous" from the "sinners," in short, the faithful from the unfaithful. The stricter the fast, the more ritual prohibitions and restrictions on the Sabbath day, the more occasions there are for pride. And for bewilderment: why does God not notice us? But God says through the mouth of His prophet: I do not need your fast. Certainly not that kind. And I do not need your religiosity. What is needed is a heart open toward Me. And toward your neighbors too. Then spiritual life will begin. With God and with people.

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?

Chapter 58 of the book of the prophet Isaiah, which we read today, is an astonishing text whose significance for Christians is hard to overestimate. The Lord answers a question about "judgments of righteousness" to people who "desire to draw near to God." "Why have we fasted, and You do not see?" - this is how, with complete frankness, the prophet formulates the "claim" of a devout person against God. Whether we are made this way, or whether the legacy of thousands of years of paganism weighs on us, we instinctively think that God needs our sacrifices, and the more effort we make, the greater mercy we earn.

The Lord speaks severe words in response: "on the day of your fast you seek your own will" and "you fast for quarrels and strife." "Who requires you to trample My courts?" He said at the beginning of the book of Isaiah. God's mercy, and drawing near to Him, can be gained only by mercy and truth embodied in life: "This is the fast that I have chosen: loose the bonds of wickedness..." Thus, in this Old Testament passage, a person's ascetic labor is presented in the same way as in the New Testament. It is important to remember this so that we do not become proud of the heights reached during the past fast...

Today the prophet Isaiah tells us how any works we do while obeying God and acknowledging His rightness and wisdom still become food for our egoism. Fasting would appear to be something a person does because the Lord has said many times how important it is for strengthening faith. Yet the confidence that I am the center of the world is so strong that God, and even more the people around us, become those who must patiently endure my bad mood, my nasty character, and everything connected with me. The main purpose of the world around me is to forget itself and serve completely the smooth running of my fast. This picture is terrible and funny. It is hard to imagine a greater absurdity. And nevertheless the prophet warns us that this is precisely the first and difficult trial for a person: fasting is a time of service to God and neighbor. Service, not bringing both God and neighbor into line with my ideas about how they should behave during my fast.

Fasting, as a religious practice, was known both to Yahwism and to Judaism. Still, neither Yahwism nor Judaism knew multi-day fasts like those Christians of the Middle Ages came to practice. The original meaning of a fast was mourning, usually for a deceased relative, and such a mourning fast could usually last from one to three days. The fast was ordinarily complete: those fasting ate and drank nothing from the evening of the day before the fast until the evening of the fast day itself. In addition, whole cities or villages could take on fasts in the event of some disaster, especially one that was known (often from a prophet's words) to have been allowed by God because of the inhabitants' sins. But such fasts were one-time fasts, and those who fasted took them on for a specific occasion each time.

In the post-exilic period, when the religious life of the Jewish people was already unthinkable outside the synagogue, the practice arose of regular one-day fasts, usually twice a week. These were no longer connected with specific events (in such cases people fasted additionally), but were regarded as a kind of spiritual exercise, and performing it was a religious obligation for every believing Jew. These fasts were understood to be connected with the sins a person fasting might have committed (perhaps without even knowing it), but, as usually happens in such cases, they became a simple formality, a kind of "sacrifice" to God that the fasting person offered Him by refusing water and food for a whole day. Few thought to ask whether God needed such a fast at all. Abstaining from food and drink, it was thought, was supposed to make the fasting person leave the ordinary rut of everyday life, remember God and his neighbor, and experience anew and vividly what a person tends to forget in the bustle of daily routine. In practice, however, abstinence itself became part of the everyday religious routine, as familiar as the routine itself.

In such a situation the prophet had to remind those who fasted that fasting is not simply a religious obligation and not a sacrifice to God, who does not need exercises in abstinence in themselves, but a way to shift a person's attention from himself to God and to his neighbors. If a fast does not fulfill this function, God does not need it and it does the person no good.