Feb. 5, 2016
Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20
God tells Isaiah to give the people bad news and to give it loud and clear. Pull no punches. Say it like it is. God is mad and God wants everyone to know it.
Preachers squirm when passages like this one come up. We’re probably apt to pick a different text to preach on. But, the psalm is no good. “Happy are those who fear the Lord!” (What about those of us who are too preoccupied to actively “fear the Lord” in a consistently meaningful way?) And the gospel doesn’t let us off easy either. “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste how can its saltiness be restored?” Who is he talking about here? Who has lost their saltiness? Is he talking about us?
The bible isn’t all affirmation. God is love and God loves us all. That is undeniable. But, that love needs to mean something. It needs to color our lives. It needs to shape the way we see things. It needs to order our priorities. It needs to guide the way we treat others. It needs to determine our actions and our self-understandings. It needs to do these things if we are to experience ourselves as People of God. It needs to do these things if we are to be “a light to the world,” a “city built on a hill,” Christ’s holy Church.
Clearly there is a strong disconnect for Isaiah’s people. They are doing what they are told. At least, they are doing the motions. They are praying. They are fasting. They are worshiping. And, they are counting it as their end of the bargain. We are being the People of God, they say. We’re doing our job; we’re fulfilling the commandments; but we’re finding no favor from all our efforts.
It’s not their actions that have God upset. It’s their intentions, it seems. They seek to be noticed. They seek to be built up. Their religious actions haven’t softened their hearts. In all their worship they have not been humbled. In all their fasting they have never noticed the hungry. In all their praying they’ve never been moved to work for justice. …There’s no truth to their faith, and therefore, there’s no power to it either.
Preachers squirm at texts like Isaiah’s not only because they call us to speak tough words to our churches, words that people may not want to hear, but also because they call into question our own practices, our own faiths. I’ve pretty intentionally positioned myself, my understanding of the gospel, on the “God is love” side of the balance. And I’ve done it because its been my conviction and my experience that when we are in tune with that love, when we are humbled by it and graced by it, we are so moved to act on it. That love changes us and shapes us. …But, maybe there’s a risk somewhere in all that. Maybe there’s an assumption that isn’t always safe to make. If we’re not willing to grow or change; if renewal, reconciliation, transformation are experiences that we’re not open to, then the message that “God is love,” may come to us as a pat on the back or the assurance that our self-rightousness is somehow justified, that we don’t need to extend ourselves and live out the gospel in radical expressions of service and love.
It’s worth thinking about. Have I taken comfort in the promise of God’s love without the hope of being changed by it? Have you?
I recently came across the story of an urban church that spent the night with homeless friends on the street. They were hoping as the author says, to find the “suffering Christ” in the lives of those who spend their days and nights suffering from hunger, disease, and rejection.” It was a cold night and at about midnight it started to rain. The soggy, chilled group of church goers and homeless folk searched for shelter and were thrilled to find that another church was holding an all-night prayer vigil. So, the soaked pastor lead her group into the praying church, but was stopped by a security guard. The pastor explained that they had no place to go; they were wet and miserable and just needed a place to dry off and pray. The security guard, having no idea who these people were replied, “I’ve been hired to keep homeless people like you out.” The author concludes, “As the dejected group made their way back into the misery of the night, they knew they had found their suffering Christ, locked out of the church.”[1]
Have we taken comfort in the promise of God’s love without the hope of being changed by it? It’s a good question for churches to ask as well.
Here’s a thought from preaching professor, Brett Younger. “How would your congregation respond to this call to worship? ‘We hope you are not planning to go through the motions in worship, singing the songs but never engaging your hearts, hearing the Scripture but not listening for God, or giving an offering but not giving yourselves, because if so, you are not doing God any favors. ‘”[2]
Beyond the idea that God is seeking something more than a sense of obligation from us, I want to suggest that this call to engage our hearts and give ourselves isn’t simply for our own benefit. In sharing God’s Spirit with us God is sharing God’s work as well. Our actions and God’s actions have a way of mixing for the benefit of the world. Three times over the course of the last week I read from completely separate sources that the root of all human pain, all human brokenness, all sin, is a sense of not mattering, not being known, not being loved. …The thing is, we can give to one another. We can give these to the world. We can do these things in little ways and big ways. When we do them we are giving just about the best we can give, and the most people need. Jesus tells us to let our lights shine. When we do, God’s light shines too.
[1] Andrew Foster Connors, Feasting on the Word, Year A Volume 1, page 318
[2] Brett Younger, Feasting on the Word, Year A Volume 1, page 319