Yr A Lent 2 2017: John 3, Isaiah 58
Fasting/ Being born again
Aim: to understand that being born again of the spirit should show a radical transformation, it should show in our actions. 
Theme today: Fasting for action not fasting from action.
Refugees
One of the main issues facing the world today is people fleeing their own countries because of conflict – refugees.  It is important to distinguish refugees from economic migrants - which is another and separate issue. 
Of course we have just heard that the next major humanitarian disaster is the famine in South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. We are told that these are political famines but people are still dying. 
Let’s have a look at some of the figures about refugees to help us think about
 the scale of the problem. 

Is not this the fasting I have chosen? 
During Lent we think about fasting, prayer and giving. You may have decided to give something up, like chocolate or alcohol or maybe you will fast from food for a period of time altogether. 
Fasting is a good spiritual practice and helps us to humble ourselves before God and seek him. However, Isaiah reminds us that fasting should be linked with action, otherwise it is a worthless activity. 
So some background for our passage from Isaiah:
•	Time of the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians.
•	V. 3 the number of fast days increased and the people said – God why have you not heard us? But v.4 shows us this is hypocritical religious activity and is a hindrance to prayer. 
•	V. 6 During the siege of Jerusalem, Hebrew slaves were rightly released after God asked the Israelites to do this as we are told in Jeremiah but later they changed their minds and reclaimed their slaves. 
•	V.7 shows us this is the outward evidence of genuine righteousness. Jesus teaches this in Matthew 25: 35-36: For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was a stranger and you invited me in. 
•	V. 8 shows us the result of feeding the hungry etc? Light/healing/the glory of the Lord – God will answer. We can see here the spiritual transformation – the outward signs of an inward transformation by God’s Spirit. 

John 3 – ‘No one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again’. 
Let us have a look and see what our Gospel reading has to say on this issue….
•	Nicodemus is symbolic of the same issue in the Jewish faith as at the time of Isaiah - a lack of understanding of the true vision of God for his people and creation. V. 2
•	Born again: we can get tripped up on this and this has been used to divide Christians! In fact, what Jesus says here is more sharply focused than we sometimes imagine. The Judaism that Nicodemus and Jesus knew was more about being born into the right family (think about the lists of ancestors at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel), being a child of Abraham than anything else. Now Jesus is saying God is starting a new family in which birth is not enough. 
•	You must be born ‘from above’ or ‘born again’ it says in v. 7.  The new birth is two fold: water baptism which brings people into the family and spirit baptism which is the new life provided by God bubbling up within people. 
•	It is through being born of God’s spirit, being born from ‘above’ – God’s action in us, not our own action that we are able to ‘see’ the Kingdom of God. It is by opening our hearts to God’s spirit that we are ‘reborn’ to see the world with God’s eyes. Paul says in 1 Corinthians we have the ‘mind of Christ’ to instruct us? 
•	If the world could truly see the Kingdom of God, what would the refugee situation look like? 

How do we apply this teaching to our lives today? 
•	Fasting during Lent is great but what is the positive result? Do you gift the money you would have spent on food, chocolate or alcohol? What will be the outward sign of the reading that you have done over Lent? 
•	What might our response be to the refugee crisis? As individuals we can give to charities, sign petitions and put pressure on our MPs. 
•	What is the Church of England doing about it? Lambeth palace of settled one family. 
•	As a church, churches and community: could we offer a place for a refugee family? Full community sponsorship scheme. As a church, community, deanery? MAP: Looking– radical mission action point? 
•	There is a saying from the Jewish Talmud – ‘Save one, save the world’.  We may not be able to save the whole refugee crisis but we can share our food with one family, provide one family with shelter. If every church in the UK did this 50,000 refugee families would be rehomed…..
•	When God judges as Jesus returns what we will say to him about what we have done to share our food with the hungry, provided the poor wander with shelter and clothed the naked? 
•	So this Lent, let us fast for action not fast from action. Let us fast for the action in the world as God is calling us to do. Let us pray for a fresh outpouring of God’s spirit that through this we may be guided to do God’s will and to join in with building his Kingdom here and now. 
Pray