I give up, or maybe not

So, what are you “giving up” for Lent?

It was always chocolate when I was a child. I suppose if you weren’t much of a chocolate-eater, you were on a winner. Unfortunately, I was in the opposite camp.

I grew up loathing the question, long after I ceased being a chocoholic.

I realised eventually, in young adulthood, that perhaps the Lord had been asking me the question from today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah: “Is that what you call fasting?”

What the Lord says is acceptable is fasting from oppression, from injustice, to share your good fortune, to actually see the needy and respond.

Better still, it’s not all one-way traffic. If you respond, the Lord promises: “Then will your light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. Cry, and the Lord will answer; call, and he will say, Í am here’.”

So, who is our God who makes such promises?