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In touch

Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues.

God’s type of fasting

Learning to do what symbols symbolise (Isaiah 58:5)

 

Context

Many of us will have had conversations with family members or friends about why they do not attend Church and why we do. In my student days in 1984, a friend once shouted at me, “I don’t believe in your God – he won’t give my boyfriend a job!” The couple were struggling financially at a time when the unemployment rate was a record 11.9%, and, despite the inherent contradiction in her words, my friend’s salvo has kept me thinking ever since.

Unemployment has been steadily rising again over the past three years - the most recent figure put it at 5.1% towards the end of last year. This raises many issues: among them the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on out-of-work benefits; the increasing cost of state pensions, and the growing workplace roles of robotics and artificial intelligence.

These are not merely economic issues to be solved using computers and spreadsheets. Every statistic represents a story of individual human lives being either fulfilled or wasted, in terms not only of economic activity, but also of aspiration and frustration.

 

Ideas for sermons or interactive talks

As Christians, we are inheritors of a tradition brimming over with symbols. The Biblical writers used a vast array to help their hearers and readers grasp something of God’s nature and purpose for our lives. Not all these symbols are objects like rock or substances like bread; some of them are actions, and it is one of these to which today’s Old Testament reading draws our attention. Its practice may not be as widespread as it once was, but among many Christian and other faith communities, fasting remains a powerful symbol.

But a symbol of what?

Today’s reading from Isaiah (or, as most scholars now call this section, Third Isaiah) lays it out in uncompromising terms (Isaiah 58:6-7). Fasting, abstaining from rich food, or all food, for a period of time, is a symbol of giving up something in one’s own life to ensure that others have better conditions in their lives. The symbolic act of fasting should remind us that God requires us to use our privileges to bring justice to the oppressed.

The examples given in our reading, although written some 2500 years ago, are still strikingly relevant in many places in the 21^st century. Consider:

• reports from the fair trade and sustainability movements about the supply chains that bring us food, clothes and other goods;
• working conditions in the places where rare earth metals are mined to make our technological gadgets;
• the huge distribution warehouses of online retailers;
• British society in which both the number of those in poverty and the number of billionaires have reached record levels.

In this context, what constitutes privilege? Not every individual has all of the following, but we are not just individuals – we are churches:

• Prayer: the confidence that when we ask for the ability to do God’s will, it will be given;
• Health: our abilities to think, walk and talk;
• Education: our abilities to read and write;
• Wealth: any disposable income we may have as individuals or as churches.

How may we use some part of these privileges to answer Isaiah’s challenge and make our symbolic actions meaningful?

 

Questions for discussion

• Make a list of symbols from the Bible and talk about what they stand for. Here are three to start you off:
  • water
  • smoke
  • sheepfold
  • …
• Why did (Third) Isaiah feel the need to speak so strongly?
• What privileges do we enjoy, as individuals and as a church community, and how might “fasting” apply to them, and how might this benefit those in need?

 

Robert Beard is an NHS worker and Church of England priest.

 

 

Check-in

Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

I wonder if any recent news story has been hard for you to navigate? The world is full of wonderful things, stories of kindness, beauty and innovation. But we can sometimes be bombarded with bad news. It’s perfectly normal to experience sadness, a heightened sense of stress, confusion or frustration when we hear upsetting news. Being honest about our feelings can help, but so can praying about the situation and how best to respond.

On Sunday night at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, several celebrities spoke strongly against Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts in Minneapolis in recent weeks. Popular British artist Olivia Dean was among them and, like many others, chose to wear an “ICE Out” pin.

Politics aside, there has been increasing condemnation across the US and beyond, of the aggressive or violent tactics of armed ICE agents in removing people suspected of not having citizenship documentation.

Sometimes we can feel helpless when we hear of oppression or violence against others; one response is to speak out against it. Celebrities have a bigger platform for their views, but as Christians we should respond to injustice in ways that we can. The prophet Isaiah challenges believers to “loose the bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free.”

Whether a distant situation, or one we are closer to, it can help to voice “For me, I don’t agree”. But God is love, and above all asks for compassion and kindness. Communities across Minneapolis have inspired us with their loving responses of great generosity to those living in fear, including bringing them food and medicines. Standing up for justice can be about sensitively responding to needs around us; loving the person as God does. Being  ‘light that shall break forth like dawn’.

 

Question

Olivia Dean’s album is titled “The art of loving”. Is there someone you could love with creativity and sensitivity this week?

 

Discuss

Share ideas of how to cope with upsetting news. It can help to regularly look at good news too e.g. Happy News Teens (Issue 122 4 Feb 2026).

 

Dr Angela Mak is a Licensed Lay Minister in the Holy Trinity Shaw Church in West Swindon. She is also a school’s worker and retired biology teacher.

 

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