This morning I, along with a large number of other people received an invitation from Kevin Rains of Vineyard Central to join a Facebook group called Lent 08′ After I accepted Kevin’s invitation to join this group – I reread the verses that Kevin choose and that are central to this group. I was so moved by the importance of these verses; at the same time I was moved nearly to tears as I considered how badly most of us, as followers of Jesus fail to live out the truth of these verses. As a collective whole the church (the people) favor major on minors and in doing so we miss the point almost entirely. We would prefer to argue minutia so that we can be “right,” regardless of the issue, rather than exercising unending compassion and extending grace to those who need us most. Here are the verses that are guiding this group called “Lent 08.” Please read and consider what these verses have to say, they can change your life if you let them become part of who you are. Isaiah 58 (The Message)1-3 “Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins!They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me.To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people, law-abiding, God-honoring.They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ and love having me on their side. But they also complain, ’Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’ 3-5″Well, here’s why: ”The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground.Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?6-9″This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, to free the oppressed, to cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage.Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places9-12″If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again. 13-14″If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage,If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God’s holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’ making money, running here and there—Then you’ll be free to enjoy God! Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all. I’ll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob.” Yes! God says so!
