God is saying, it seems like your religious acts are really good, and that you are actually seeking me. When in fact, you are only focused on yourselves.
For generations we seek God because of our own self-centered needs. God is saying that all our religious acts are about us and not about God. There is a blindness that we need to examine our hearts and see if our spirituality is focused only on ourselves.
As we begin Lent, we are called to examine our spirituality.
“Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?
'Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.”
God says you are doing external acts, but your heart remains unchanged. Your spirituality must involve others.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to lose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every 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 them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
This is the additional dimension to fasting and prayer; be concerned about other people. Today, focus on your own family. We are most brutal, callous and neglectful to the people in our own families. We take them for granted. We are kind and nice to those we work with, but brutal to those we live with. Fast of your words and your needs, to care and listen to others in your family. Often older people become irrelevant, lose value or worth. Many don’t want to hear the old people. Loving them is to hear as they repeat their stories as though you are hearing them for the 1st time.
“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”.
When you are right with God you will have a breakthrough. Everything will fall into place. When you are not right with God, you have to run after things. Things come together when you become right with Him.
Gospel (Matthew 9:14-15)
“How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?' Jesus answered, 'How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”
When we go through a crisis, naturally we seek God. In the heart of the crisis when we have an encounter with God, that crisis becomes a blessing from God. Jesus says, if you find the Bridegroom as a result of seeking Him in the crisis that crisis becomes a wedding feast, a reason for celebration. Every crisis is a waiting opportunity to meet the Bridegroom.
Sometimes the very people who helped us in our spiritual journey could be the very people who hurt us, abandon us, cause injustice to us. That is part of community life. But when that happens, we withdraw. We fail to see it is an invitation to encounter the Bridegroom. Unfortunately, many educated people don’t see this.
In John 16:32 Jesus says all of you will abandon me, but I will not be alone because my Father is with me. When Jesus went to Gethsemane, he was restless. He took His 3 best friends to be with Him, and to support Him. Jesus prayed, worked out His inner struggle with the Father, came to His friends to find them asleep. He fell from within. He went back into prayer, worked it out with the Father, came back to the friends and fell again within Himself when He saw them asleep. The third time He had broken into the heart of God, and He was ready. He told the disciples “the hour has come”.
Today we are given three challenges;
1. Fast
2. Focus on family members
3. Meet the Bridegroom in the struggles and challenges
