Humans have been worshiping God, sometimes without realizing it’s God they are worshiping, since the earliest records we can find. There are many things that have been commonly associated with worship. Fasting is one of those.
In our time, and in our culture, fasting isn’t seen as a primary form of worship. In Jesus’ time it was seen as worship and the more one fasted, the more pious one was thought to be. Jesus taught a parable about a man who considered himself righteous and affirmed his piousness by fasting twice a week and tithing a tenth of everything he received.1 God did call for fasting and for tithing and for offering sacrifices; however, those weren’t the main forms of worship God was looking for.
I was reading in Isaiah 58 and people are complaining that they are fasting, and God hasn’t seemed to respond. Isaiah says God is telling them that a true fast, a true act of worship is more than those things dedicated to God. True worship is about sharing with those who don’t have food, loosening the chains of injustice, providing the wanderer with shelter, and clothing the naked.2
The people of Isaiah’s time thought that worship was simply a matter of following certain rituals and saying the right words in the right place at the right time. Isaiah says worship is also about how one relates to other people. True worship is about how one treats those who need food, justice, clothing or anything else.
Someone might argue that true worship had to do with offering sacrifices. Yet the prophet Micah pointed out that to come before the Lord wasn’t a matter of bringing sacrifices, no matter how many. It had to do with justice, mercy (giving what was not deserved) and walking humbly with God.3
Unfortunately, much of the church has lost sight of the importance of how we relate to other people as a part of what it means to worship God. This is despite the fact that Jesus pointed out that being in relationship with God was tied to how we relate to other people. In the judgment, people are separated into two groups based on how they treat other people.4 How often one fasted, how faithfully one tithed and the number of things sacrificed for God doesn’t enter the equation.
The bottom line is that we will have to answer for how we treat other people. Just because we do all the things often described as worship doesn’t mean we will be approved of by God. What is essential is that we first truly become followers of Jesus and that we recognize that a part of following Jesus is how we relate to other people.
Ross T Lucas 