Epiphany

February 3, 2020

Scripture Reading:
Isaiah 58:1-9

Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
   and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgements,
   they delight to draw near to God.
‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?
   Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day,
   and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
   will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
   a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
   and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
   a day acceptable to the Lord? –Isaiah 58:1-5

My book club just read and reviewed Anne Perry’s book, The Face of a Stranger. The book opens with the main character in the hospital recovering from an accident that caused him to lose his memory. He did not know who he was and did not recognize himself in a mirror. It made me wonder if most of us knows ourselves as well as we think. As this man moved through picking up his life without knowing who he was he found himself being rude and wondering, “Is that who I am?” Meeting people he knew before his accident who did not know he had lost his memory, he gaged their responses to him and wondered what kind of man he was. Perhaps more importantly, he wondered what kind of man he was becoming.

In our scripture today Isaiah describes a people, God’s people, who seemed to be substituting self-righteousness for God’s righteousness. Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day, and oppress all your workers. If we looked in the mirror through Christ’s eyes what would we see?

Prayer: Lord, open our eyes to see ourselves as you see us. Forgive us when we seek you out to undergird our self-interest rather than your divine plan. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.