Church of the Holy City

The Kind of Fast God Has Chosen

The Kind of Fast God Has Chosen
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
November 14, 2010

Isaiah 58:3-11 Mark 12:28-34 Psalm 31

In the Psalm we recited today, God tells us, “How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you.” And the Psalmist confirms this when he says, “Praise be to the Lord, for He has showed me the wonders of His love.” We are promised that, “The Lord preserves those who are true to Him.” And on our part, we are told, “Love the Lord, all His faithful people!”
These passages tell us that God has abundant good things stored up for those who love Him. As infinite love, there is no limit to the good things God can give us. But we need to do certain acts in order for these good things to come to us. We find suggestions of what we need to do in our Isaiah and in our Mark readings.
I selected the Isaiah reading because it shows us the twofold nature of how we are to approach God in a worthy manner. Isaiah tells the Israelites two things: show justice and compassion, and desist from evils.
The passage begins with God declaring to the Israelites how their days of fasting are unworthy. They are only performing outward rituals, and ignoring the true nature of fasting. The Prophet asks,
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
Only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
And for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is this what you call a fast,
A day acceptable to the LORD? (58:5)
Not only are the Israelites indulging in empty ritual, they are actually doing evils on their fast days. The Prophet accuses them:
Yet on the days of your fasting, you do as you please
And exploit your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
And in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
And expect your voice to be heard on high (58:3,4).
Worship of God–then and now–cannot be just a matter of ritual. There is an internal to true worship, which touches on the kind of life we are living. Again from Isaiah, the Prophet tells the Israelites what they need to do in order for their fasting to be acceptable to God. He points to justice and compassion as deeds one needs to perform in order for worship to be acceptable:
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
To loose the chains of injustice
And untie the cords of the yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter–
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (58:6-7)
Finally, the Prophet tells the Israelites to desist from evil actions:
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
With the pointing of the finger and malicious talk,
And if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry
And satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
Then your light will rise in the darkness,
And your night will become like the noonday (58:9,10).
So the message of the Prophet is instruction about what kinds of deeds need to be done in order for their fasting to be acceptable to God, and also showing the Israelites the kinds of evils from which they must desist. But his message doesn’t end in these teachings. There are also wonderful promises about what the Israelites will receive if they perform right fasting to God. In beautiful poetry, he promises them,
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.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
You will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. . . .
The LORD will guide you always;
He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
And will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters never fail (58:8,11).
Jesus captures the essence of these teachings in his answer to the teacher of the law. The question was, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus’ answer is more general than was Isaiah’s, but in being more general it is more encompassing. We all know very well Jesus’ answer, “Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:30,31). Jesus’ answer covers more of our life since he is talking about love. Isaiah talked about compassion for the needy, but Jesus’ saying covers love for everyone.
What I like about the Isaiah passage, however, is its twofold nature. It is not enough to just do good. We need also to refrain from evils. So Isaiah says, “do away with the yoke of oppression,/With the pointing of the finger and malicious talk” (58:9) as he also commands compassion for the oppressed and needy. This is in keeping with Swedenborg’s understanding of the process of regeneration. We have looked at how love flows into us from God, and how this influx opens up the higher reaches of our consciousness. But I haven’t said much about how we play a role in this process.
We open the higher reaches of our consciousness by the way we practice religion, or by our spirituality. Swedenborg teaches that there are three levels to our soul. There is the earthly level, the spiritual level, and the heavenly level. We move from one level to another like a quantum leap. These levels are like layers on a wedding cake–a lower layer, a middle layer, and the highest layer. Within each level we expand gradually higher and higher, more and more inward. But this kind of growth is still within the level we are on. Then, when we have gotten as high as we can within one level, we jump up to the next level. This is called by Swedenborg continuous and discrete levels. We progress incrementally as a continuous progression on one level. Then we jump up to the next level as a discrete quantum leap.
The three levels in our soul are none other than the three levels of heaven. In heaven there are the same three levels–earthly, spiritual, and heavenly. Some old-time Swedenborgians may know these levels by different names–natural, spiritual, and celestial. So in the earthly level, or in the earthly heaven, one can progress further and further in love and wisdom without jumping up to the spiritual level. And likewise, one can progress in the spiritual level further and further in love and wisdom without jumping up to the heavenly level. We have all these three levels in our soul, but they only exist potentially until we actually open them up.
This comes to our participation in the opening of the three levels of our soul. Our lowest level is concerned with knowledge and rationality. The spiritual level is concerned with a love of uses from a love for our neighbor. And the heavenly level is concerned with a love for uses from a love for God. Swedenborg gives us a description of these levels of our mind in his book Divine Love and Wisdom.
these three levels are called earthly, spiritual, and heavenly. When we are born, we come into the earthly level, which gradually develops within us in keeping with the things we learn and the intelligence we gain through this learning, all the way to the summit of intelligence called rationality. This by itself, though, does not open the second level, the one called spiritual. This level is opened by a love for being useful that comes from our intelligence; but the love for being useful is a spiritual one, a love for the neighbor.
In the same way, this level can develop by incremental steps all the way to its summit; and it does so by discovering what is true and good, or by spiritual truths. Even so, these do not open that third level that is called heavenly. This is opened by a heavenly love for being useful that is a love for the Lord; and love for the Lord is nothing but applying the precepts of the Word to our lives, these precepts being essentially to abstain from evil things because they are hellish and demonic and to do good things because they are heavenly and divine (DLW 237).
From this passage we see that the two higher levels of our mind are opened by the two great commandments of Jesus: love for the neighbor and love for God. The spiritual level is concerned with a love for discovering what is good and true out of a love for our neighbor. The heavenly level is concerned with applying the precepts of the Bible to our lives. I chose the Isaiah passage this morning with the heavenly level in mind. Isaiah tells the Israelites to abstain from certain evils and how to do certain goods. And Swedenborg tells us that the essence of love for God is “essentially to abstain from evil things because they are hellish and demonic and to do good things because they are heavenly and divine.”
So this passage tells us what our responsibility is in the process of regeneration. To learn knowledges and grow in intelligence and into rationality. This is on the earthly level. Then when we jump up to the spiritual level we learn what is good and true in order to love our neighbor. Finally we apply what we have learned into our lives by abstaining from evil and doing what is good out of a love for God. If we are diligent in our practice of spiritually, then we can look forward to Isaiah’s promises:
Then your light will rise in the darkness,
And your night will become like the noonday (58:9,10)
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.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
You will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. . . .
The LORD will guide you always;
He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
And will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
Like a spring whose waters never fail (58:8,11).