I love Lent. Every year, its solemnity descends on Ash Wednesday and carries through to Holy Week, and I feel like I’m better able to dive deeper into my faith. I’m never successful in my Lenten disciplines, but I try again year after year, and each time I grow closer to God, which is, I think, the point.

If we did nothing else at Ash Wednesday mass but read verses from Isaiah, I would be content. It stirs me up each year to read those words of justice.

³ “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day
    and oppress all your workers.
⁴ You fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
    will not make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

⁶ Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you;
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

There’s just so much there, and this year, I found even more within it. Look at verse 6.

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?

I used to be bothered by the repetition of “yoke” here. It seemed sort of redundant–I mean, we already undid the straps of the yoke, my guy, do we really need to do much more? But we do. We can’t just remove the yoke, remove the oppression; we have to break it, to destroy it. It’s not enough to feed the poor; we must eradicate the structures that cause poverty. We ease the pain first, by loosing the bonds of injustice. We remove the weight of oppression next, by undoing the straps of the yoke. We liberate the oppressed, letting the oppressed go free. And then we break down the system, the tools through which we have been part and party in the oppression.

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
    and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
    and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

We’re given a clear roadmap next, in verse 7: share bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house (your house–not a shelter on the other side of town), cover the naked, and–and then–not to hide yourself from your own kin. I read that kin is translated as “flesh”, and at its core, doesn’t mean mother/brother/cousin, but fellow human, fellow flesh. And we’re all guilty of this, of hiding ourselves from our fellow humans. Looking straight ahead as someone begs for change on the streetcorner. Enjoying our comfortable houses, our churches full of people like us (not full of those who come on weekday mornings to ask our clergy for help with bills and food), our regular neighborhood haunts that hide the oppressed from us, that hide ourselves from the oppressed.

I have some funny beliefs, I think. Beliefs that make me an outlier among many Christians, and an outlier among my non-religious friends who pursue social justice with every fiber of their being. I believe, that with God’s help, we can achieve heaven on earth. That that takes the form of true, full liberation. Full liberation of every oppressed person on earth, destruction of every collective sin of oppression: of white supremacy and anti-Blackness, unbridled capitalism and a culture of extraction and exploitation, of the patriarchy, of every last system that works to undermine the full freedom of and care for each individual on this planet. I think it can happen. I think it will happen.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you;
    the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Verse 8 used to feel like a reward to me, and I didn’t like it. We should do the things in verse 7 because they are the morally, ethically right things to do, not so that we can gain something. But we’re not promised riches here in verse 8, but light and healing. What is light if not the clarity to move forward? And how can we heal if we ourselves are not healed? As we liberate, so too are we liberated.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

And then finally, our call aloud to God. I choose not to walk this path to liberation alone, or even solely alongside the many who fight for the destruction of oppression, but with God. And when I cry out, God will answer. Maybe not with a solution, but with a presence. With a walk alongside me.

The chapter goes on, and it’s just as wise as the verses here. But I’m turning, too, to the words of the saints–not the big S saints, but all of those in the Communion of Saints, whose words strengthen us in the here and now.

I’ve been reading a lot about and by Dorothy Day, whose radical hospitality pushes me and enlivens me. I’m stuck on one quote: “If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor.” I think about this sentence almost constantly. It’s not an admonition: if you have two coats, you should give one to the poor. Nor is it a condemnation: if you have two coats, you’ve stolen one from the poor. It’s just the truth: if you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor. If you have an excess of food, that food belongs to the poor. If you have lots of investments, massive savings, wealth beyond your needs (and here, I mean needs, truly, needs), that wealth belongs to the poor.

I often think maybe I should overhaul my life and start a hospitality house like Dorothy, a place that always has a pot of soup on the stove and a pot of coffee hot and ready. And maybe I should. But right now, my work feels very here. I’ve started the discernment process, for what I think is a call to the priesthood, but could well turn out to be a call to something else. I’ve felt the call for, I don’t know, 27 years? Since confirmation class with Father Joe Ted in the library at St. John’s, with its plush carpet and sofas that swallowed my twelve year old body whole, sinking in like I might never make it out.

We’re always being called, I’ve learned in my discernment class, which I’m taking alongside dozens of others in our Diocese, which stretches across New Mexico and into West Texas. I’m learning that sometimes I mistake righteous indignation for the call of the Holy Spirit, and remember my Baptismal Covenant to seek and serve Christ in all persons and respect the dignity of every human being. The “all” and the “every” are heavy in those words. We’re always being called, but what’s critical is that we listen to what we’re being called to right now, in this moment. That’s not the priesthood, though maybe it’s the path to it, but it’s the work in the here and now, the membership on the vestry and the weight of its work, the Sunday School curriculum and children’s events, carrying the cross and ringing the Eucharistic bells at mass so that the rhythm of the liturgy continues in its comfort to those in the pews.

“Everyone wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes” goes the quote attributed to Dorothy Day (though no one really knows if she said it or not, it sounds at least like her philosophy). I’m trying to focus on both the dishes (metaphorically–don’t look in my kitchen sink) and the revolution. The everyday workings: the Google Docs for work that build into change that’s greater than I am, the raising of the kids who will go on to do more transformative things than I could dream of, but who for now get to be kids who need to be reminded to brush their teeth and not to headbutt their sisters, the meetings (even the ones that could have been an email), the dinners with friends, and yeah, sometimes the dishes, so that we can gather our community together in the backyard and have something to serve the beans and cornbread from.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

Well, here I am, too. Let’s break the bonds, and do the dishes.