The passage from Isaiah (58:1–11) is a forceful “rebuke” from God against a religiosity that appears correct, yet is inwardly empty. The prophet is called to cry out “like a trumpet”: not to condemn people with malice, but to awaken consciences that have made peace with falsehood. The people fast, they pray, they ask for “a just judgment,” they wish “to draw near to God.” Yet God reveals that this approach becomes, in the end, a kind of self-justification: “We have fasted, and You did not see.” It is as if they are saying, “We did our religious duty; now God owes us a return.”

Here lies the spiritual trap: fasting, instead of becoming a path of repentance, turns into an argument for a transaction. Instead of softening the heart, it hardens it. That is why God exposes what happens “in the days of your fasts”: the person continues to pursue “his own desires,” to pressure those “under his authority,” to produce “quarrels and fights,” even to strike “the humble.” In other words, one may cut back on food, yet not cut off injustice. One may recite prayers, yet not cut off exploitation. One may make prostrations, yet not practice mercy.

God does not reject ascetic struggle. He rejects the hypocrisy that can hide behind ascetic struggle. “This is not the fast that I have chosen” does not mean “do not fast,” but “do not turn fasting into a performance.” Then the text gives a definition of true fasting—above all social and heartfelt: “Loose every bond of injustice”: undo chains, break up unjust agreements, tear up contracts that oppress, send the crushed away in freedom. Then: give bread to the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, clothe the naked, do not disregard “your own,” your own fellow human being.

This is deeply Christian even before the Gospel of salvation is proclaimed: one’s relationship with God passes through one’s relationship with one’s brother. Not as a “humanitarianism without God,” but as worship that becomes action. Fasting, then, is not simply diet; it is conversion. It is to stop feeding on my ego and learn to live from love.

And then come the promises—not as a magical reward, but as the natural fruit of returning to God: “Then your light shall break forth…,” your light will rise like the dawn. Healing “shall spring up quickly,” because injustice sickens the soul, while mercy heals it. “Your righteousness shall go before you”—that is, your life gains uprightness and a straight path. And most striking of all: “While you are still speaking, He will say, ‘Here I am.’” Before you finish your prayer, God answers: “I am here.” Not because you “bought” an answer through deeds, but because you stopped hiding behind hypocritical forms and made room for His presence.

In Great Lent, the Church reminds us that the goal is not to appear as “good fasters,” but to become true disciples: people who silence grumbling, cut off condemnation, put an end to contempt, and give “bread from the soul.” When bread is offered “from the soul,” even the darkness becomes “like midday.” For where mercy is, there God dwells.

+ Metropolitan Nektarios of Hong Kong and South East Asia