I spent a week in Washington DC with my family after Christmas. We got to see some of the monuments, museums, and government agency buildings. On our way back to our hotel one evening, we walked past the Environmental Protection Agency building. In front of the building was a trash can brimming with trash. I don't know why the sight struck me as funny, but I thought it was a little ironic. I laughed a little about it for the next block until I got to the next building and saw an equally ironic but far less comedic sight. I had just gotten through making a statement to my mom about how cold I was and how glad I was that I had brought my coat when I saw the sign for the Internal Revenue Service. My gaze immediately shifted to the bench in front of the sign which held a sleeping homeless man. My words burned into my mind as I walked past. I was on my way back to a warm hotel room with a warm comfortable bed and I wondered what it would be like to be cold without any place to go or what it would be like to wonder where I'd get my next meal.

Read through the following quote from Isaiah 58:1-8. It's a little long but I think makes my point better than I could say.

1 "Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the house of Jacob their sins.

2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.

3 'Why have we fasted,' they say,
'and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?'
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD ?

6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness [a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Unfortunately we live in a world filled with the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry. Sin has infected our world and brought about all of these things and more. As I wandered the streets of Washington DC, I saw people and buildings that represent immense wealth and power. But there even in the midst of the city symbolic of wealth and power are the hungry, the poor, the naked. Will we "…turn away from [our] own flesh and blood?"