Isaiah 58:1–12
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6)
Our Lenten disciplines are often private and closed off from the world. There’s a good reason for that, I suppose. “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them,” Jesus says, according to Matthew, “for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1) The most public we get with our Lenten observance is that someone may notice the ashes on our forehead or that we’re abstaining from one food or another according to our tradition or private discipline. Purple drapery, vestments, and paraments declare that Lent has come in the church; but outside of the sanctuary, the world takes little notice.
Isaiah has some blunt things to say about that kind of spiritual discipline in the passage we often read on Ash Wednesday. “Shout out, do not hold back!” Isaiah says, “Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.” (Isaiah 58:1)
We must name with a loud and clear voice the sins of our institutions. Some examples from the United States (from the Sentencing Project):
- Half of the people in federal prisons are serving time for a drug offense. We’ve decided that we should try to destroy the lives of people over drugs by frequently decimating their chances at future employment, stripping them of their right to vote temporarily or permanently, and subjected them to the violence of the prison system.
- We’ve looked at a system that does unspeakable violence to the incarcerated and great damage to their lives after incarceration and over the past 40 years concluded that we should increase incarceration 500%.
- States spend over $60,900,000,000 on prisons every year. We’ve chosen incarceration as a solution to social problems rather than provision, reconciliation, or restoration. How many people could have been fed, educated, or cared for with that money?
Our past Lenten fasts have not changed these facts or made Christians people who want to change these trends, for the most part. “Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist,” Isaiah continues. “Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard from on high.” (v. 4) The United States has only become more carceral and retributive over the past several decades. So, in what kind of fast should we engage?
“Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (v. 6) This Lent, consider making your fast one from injustice. Change the way you spend your money so you aren’t benefiting the private prison complex. Join a prison ministry focused on the liberation of people from incarceration (be careful and discerning here as there are many non-liberationist prison ministries). Work with or buy from businesses that hire formerly incarcerated individuals, or hire them yourself if you’re among the employer class (and pay a living wage, while you’re at it). Write your legislators. Form relationships with those suffering incarceration or post-incarceration, embracing them as members of your community.
A significant thing you could do is make it a discipline to spread the Gospel of abolition in your church, whether you are a minister or a lay person. Use the resources from Christians for the Abolition of Prisons in your Sunday School classes, Bible studies, small groups, or whatever you call your discipleship gatherings at church. The resources page is full of great podcasts, articles, and other materials to make this process easy. If you can’t get a ministry of your church on board, do it in your own prayer life and refuse to be quiet about it to your peers. “Shout out, do not hold back!” as Isaiah says.
Make this Lent one not of private piety, but vocal righteousness. If we do, Isaiah promises great things: “The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (v. 11)
Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his)is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina. You can find more of his work at wespearsnewsome.com.