Lenten Resolution

Why do we fast, but you do not see?

Isaiah 58:2

Another Lenten Season is here. Most of us would love to celebrate Lent as a time of piety and spiritual renewal. We would decide to fast from addictions that we realize are affecting our lives. Some people would fast from social media, some from vices that haunt them, some from behavioral aberrations that makes them selfish, greedy and quarrelsome. Some would choose to abstain from hurting others through words or actions while others would try to embody God’s love in their lives in visible and practical ways. Some choose to be vocal advocates of justice and to hear the cry of the poor and the oppressed and respond with love and compassion. Some would choose to stand with all the crucified peoples of the earth while others would want to be more vocal against injustice and be champions of justice and peace. It is worthwhile asking ourselves- what is my Lenten resolution this year?

Isaiah 58 is a powerful text that defines God’s expectations on fasting. It asks a very poignant question- why do we fast, but you do not see? (58:3). On a closer look should the question not be- but why do we not see?

What are life’s realities around us that we do not see. At ACF we are focusing on the crucified experiences of migrant communities through the Fragrance in Freiburg initiatives, and it has been an amazing eye-opening experience to all those who are being involved.

While it is true that several countries have been gracious, inviting, welcoming, accommodating and open to the refugees and asylum seekers it is also a fact in most cases as churches and individuals WE DO NOT OFTEN SEE THE REAL PAIN OF PEOPLE BRANDED ‘OUTSIDERS’

The primary question that we ask after each encounter with refugees and asylum seekers is why do they have to flee from their home contexts.

Not all have left their countries by choice but mostly by compulsion. War and violence had made living unimaginable in many contexts of the world. When the rich and the powerful engage in war merely due to greed and avarice, little do they realize that their arrogance is making living impossible for millions of people in their home turfs. They seek the best available option- to flee. Some even venture into the seas towards unknown destinations. If they are able to find a gracious coast that would welcome them and host them they are lucky. Many die on the way. Many families are disrupted. Many people end up as refugees and asylum seekers. Many are left as ‘paperless” peoples and undocumented residents- always under threat of extradition and prison sentences. They are called illegal immigrants and seen with suspicion. Even political parties use their plight for political gain by campaigning against sharing resources with the “outsiders”. Othering takes painful forms as people try to cope with living in foreign contexts. The realities the people are living through, their pain and agony, their fears and anxieties, their existential angst and their struggles for survival are facts WE DO NOT SEE.

Some others flee because of structures of injustice that makes life painful. The plight that women live with in several patriarchal societies creates in them an urge for liberation. Gender based violence can sometimes be unimaginably brutal. Class, caste and poverty become yokes that remain a burden in the shoulders of people which they want to be emancipated from. The oppression that people live with leave several people hungry and homeless. Political, religious and ethnic conflicts and persecution sometimes lead to realities like ethnic cleansing and genocide. In some contexts the break down in law and order due to inept governance or oppressive regimes combined with organized crime make life untenable. They flee for life into a world of the unknown and the struggles that they live with- WE DO NOT SEE.

In one of the listening evenings we had, we asked the few young people who were gathered what were their greatest challenges living in a foreign country as refugees. The first response was- uncertainty about the present and the future while another one immediately added- trauma from the past. Being uprooted from their home contexts they have not found new roots in the new contexts. Memories of home and the people whom they have left behind or lost on the way continuously haunt them. The plight of people back home, especially their dear ones is a cause of continuous trauma. The fact that families are scattered across nations making prospects of reunification bleak can cause an inexplicable pain. The lived out experience of war and migration constantly affects mental health and well being. Many a times these are realities that WE DO NOT SEE.

In a session aimed at better integration to the new context people explained how complicated and slow the asylum process was. It is a challenge understanding immigration laws and processes. Waiting with limited rights through the process and facing constant deportation threats during that time is not easy. Many camps are akin to detention centres where there are stringent restrictions on movement. They are many a times branded as economic burdens, denied equal access to housing, education and employment. They take the brunt of several social issues that nations face and are victims of hate speech, racial discrimination and isolation. The bureaucratic expectations of local language standards further complicate things. However hard they try to integrate into the local community they are continuously pushed to the peripheries by some. As people struggle through these realities it is true that WE DO NOT SEE.

The struggles of teenagers who had to leave their home and parents and seek asylum in foreign countries and pursue education in languages alien to them, the agony of single people who are deprived of all support systems, the pain of the differently abled and mentally and emotionally challenged, the tears of the people who do not get access to the food that they were used to but are forced to adjust to the culinary habits of the country they fled to, the depression that the elderly face having to leave behind everything… WE DO NOT SEE.

Isaiah asks us- Why do we fast and do not see and reminds us what true fasting is in 58:6-8

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
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?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing shall spring up quickly;

Therefore the question that we need to ask is not- why do we fast and you do not see? But it should be why do we fast but DO NOT SEE ourselves what we must actually be seeing around us.

Prayer for Lent

O Lord Open Our Eyes To See

The True Meaning of Lent

and the Pain of the People Around Us.

Help us behold the one who walked to the Cross

Overcame death and darkness and made us Light

Bless us to embody his Love in our lives

Amen

Vinod Victor

March 1, 2025