Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
Isaiah 58:5

The sacred-secular divide is nothing new. In Isaiah’s time too, God was interested in what his people did every day. Religious ceremony (fasting is in view here) was not enough – ‘only a day for people to humble themselves?’, God asks. True religion, now as then, manifests itself in how we go about our life every day, including at work.

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ The reason, God responds, is that ‘on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers’ (Isaiah 58:3). That was the problem. They did as they pleased, not as pleased God. God expected their lives, including – but not limited to – their work lives, to be lived for him, not as they pleased.

So, God desires from us humility – for every day, not just for one day – with all the implications that might carry for our sense of self-importance, our ego trips and vanity projects. Moreover, since ‘fasting ends in quarrelling and strife’ (58:4), concord not discord is required. God’s people are also called to do away ‘with the pointing finger and malicious talk’ (58:9). At the very least, that’s a powerful reminder to beware of the blame game – seen, perhaps, in those defensive emails and back covering that can so often be a part of office politics. As Paul asks, ‘Why not rather be wronged?’ (1 Corinthians 6:7). Nor are we to ‘speak idle words’ (58:13). That’s the end of the gossiping session, then.

Instead, we are to treat people at work, and people with whom we do business, fairly and justly (58:6), without exploiting them (58:3). That does not just apply to big business: God sees how we treat those who report to us and relate to us, in whatever capacity.

Isaiah 58 is a call to repentance, to a way of right living in the everyday areas of life, including our work life. In walking in these ways – worshipping God every day, not only a day – we will find our joy in the Lord (58:14), and our light ‘will break forth like the dawn’ (58:8).