Every year in the weeks that precede Lent, I find myself pondering the same question: what am I going to do with this holy season? The readings on these first days of Lent provide ample direction, offering a call to action and clear instructions for how to proceed over the next forty days.

Specific to the idea of fasting, more than answering what to do, today’s Old Testament reading addresses how to do it. Isaiah presents a crystal-clear recipe in stark counterpoint to “carrying out your own pursuits” and engaging in a fast that ends in “quarreling and fighting.”

Before telling us what to do, though, he addresses what comes across as something we might think of today as a sense of entitlement, the people wondering “what’s in it for me?” Tired from their sacrifices, they ask “Why do we fast, and you do not see it? Afflict ourselves, and you take no note of it?”

Isaiah proposes a different approach, declaring “This, rather, is the fasting that I wish.” What follows is a list that to me evokes a kind of Lenten superhero. I can almost see the colorful cartoon bursts after each exhortation:

Set free the oppressed—Zap!

Feed the hungry—Crash!

Shelter the homeless—Boom!

Clothe the naked—Kapow!

There is nothing vague about this, no wondering what to do, no room for navel gazing or whining. This is faith in action. But action has it rewards, (as does faith, of course) and Isaiah promises your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed.

While the words of the reading evoke this superhero image for me, we don’t need a cape or superpowers to make this part of your Lent, just a willingness to look outwards as well as inwards, and a desire to focus on the needs of others as well as our own. From that stance of humble service, we can be comforted by knowing When you call the Lord for help, he will answer, saying “Here I am.”