Salt and  light both affect much beyond their size; a little goes a good way.These small things do have an impact. We do notice their effect. Their value inheres in their use. As many of us realize with the power down, a single candle casts a good bit of light. A little can have an impact, a candle, or a small church, or a single life well-lived.

 

Letters for Bread for the World, the check for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance- the food to Human Services-they all make a difference.

Isaiah makes a  fearsome relation of justice, worship and answered prayer. God certainly sees worship as central to the religious life. What God does not appreciate is our dividing life into a worship compartment and an everyday life compartment. God wants us to look at the word with stained glass eyes. God wants us to look at each other as we are led to see each other in worship.Isaiah suggests that prayer is affected by the quality of the nation. Sure, we hear a lot about moral decline in America, especially among those who think it will be connected to the end of the world. I do not hear much about the moral strides toward justice we have made as a nation in our lifetime.

What should we fast from? The examples are good: pointing the finger-blaming the victim-playing the victim When I was young, children were told that when they pointed out someone's faults, three fingers were pointing back at them. With the rise of talk radio in sports and politics, we have become adept at finger-pointing over the airwaves, and it is often directed at leaders and the need for change. Look at the chorus of complaint against the Indiana Pacers coach. Fasting is not a popular spiritual practice. In days past, the presidents used to proclaim a day of fasting and prayer. One way to look at it would be to match an empty heart with an empty stomach. The government re-examined food ratings in light of our nation's commitment to poor eating habits and overeating. If some faraway space alien would come to make a research site, they could well conclude that most of our religious temples are for something called fast food. Perhaps a good way to go at this would be to avoid seeing fasting as a way to diet, but to take a fast from fad diets and the constant pressure to diet. We need a fast from committing injustice, and maybe even being complicit in injustice. Fasting acknowledges that we have limits. Our girls sometimes watch How I Met Your Mother, and I caught a piece where the Doogie Hauser guy said that new is always better and more is always better.Jesus was probably thinking of fasting, and remember that Jesus took fasts, when he spoke of hunger and thirsting...after righteousness. Without power we appreciate its benefits more than merely as something to be consumed. Macrina Wiederkehr writes  "fasting cleans out a body but it bares the souls.  It leads us into the arms of One for whom we hunger....we hunger for what is right. We hunger to be saints....Each of us is called to be bread for the world." One could add or salt or light. Augustine said that god is always trying to give us good things, but our hands are too full to receive them.

 

Jesus is being careful to say that he is not against religious observances such as fasting. Jesus is fulfilling the law. Jesus reveals a way of life that fulfills the law's intent and purposes. Jesus asks us to practice what we preach.