Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Friday, March 22, 2013 Read – Isaiah 58 I suspect that Luke liked Isaiah 58 – especially the words regarding the fast that God takes delight in. The first part of the chapter reflects upon the possibility that religious practice and ritual can actually lead us astray. Doing the right religious things and thinking that somehow the doing of them will suffice does not work. It’s not about fasting! Rather it is about caring for the poor – “loosing the bonds of injustice, undoing the thong of the yoke, letting the oppressed go free, breaking the yoke, sharing our bread with the hungry, and our homes with the homeless, covering the naked” (Isaiah 58:6-7). When God’s people do these things then the light of God shines in the world. This theme, of course, is also found in the words Jesus quoted in the Nazareth synagogue from Isaiah 61. In fact, Jesus reached back and grabbed the idea of letting the “oppressed go free” from this chapter. This is the ministry of Jesus in a fallen world. And this is the ministry that Jesus calls his church to center itself upon. We are invited to reflect upon our own lives and the ministry of our church as we hear these words of Isaiah, Luke, and Jesus.