Lenten Fasting for Justice

Call to Lenten Fasting for Justice

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent 2011. My goal is to post something every day for a Lenten Blog (on http://purduewesleyfound.blogspot.com/) that is primarily renewing for me but hopefully renewing for others as well. I may share my own thoughts or post stuff from others

The date of Ash Wednesday is set by counting back forty days before Easter, not including Sundays (always mini-Easters and feast days). Easter this year is about the latest it ever is, and therefore Ash Wednesday is later than usual (falling between the dates of Feb. 4-March 10). Next year it will fall back to Feb. 22nd. I will post more on calculating Easter and Lent later. But for now I want to get more spiritually focused.

Ash Wednesday is a somber day, a day of fasting, praying, reflecting, remembering that we are mortal sinners, mourning, and repenting of our sins. We are more than dust only thanks to God breathing ruach/spirit/breath into us. The imposition of ashes is related to the Hebrew tradition of putting ashes on one's head as a sign of grief. At the same time, marking the ashes in the sign of the cross with oil reminds us of our baptism, and that our second birth/new life is only possible through Christ's death and resurrection.

This day and season, I will try to begin fasting in a new way. Rather than giving something up for Lent as I usually do, my goal will be to proactively follow Isaiah 58 by increasing awareness of injustices around our world, loosening the bonds of injustice for the oppressed, and sharing my resources with the hungry and homeless. I invite others to share this Isaiah 58 fast with me.

⁶ 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?

⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

God our Creator, you create us from the dust of the earth.

Grant that these ashes may be for us a sign of our penitence, and a symbol of our mortality.

Traditional Ash Wednesday prayer