Isaiah 1:12-17 "Justice and Worship"

Embedded in what often seems to be the great mystery of college administration and communication is the following correspondence:

Memo from President to Vice president:

Next Thursday Haley’s Comet will appear over this area.  This is an event that occurs once every seventy years. Call the department chairs and have them assemble their professors and students on the athletic field and explain this phenomenon to them. If it rains, then cancel the observation and have the classes meet in the gym to see a film about the comet.

Chairmen to the Professors:

By order of the phenomenal president next Thursday Haley’s Comet will appear in the gym. In case of rain over the athletic field the president will give another order, something which occurs every seventy years.

Professors to the students:

Next Thursday the president will appear in our gym with Haley’s Comet, something which occurs every seventy years. If it rains, the president will cancel the Comet and order us out onto our phenomenal athletic field.

Student writing home to parents:

When it rains next Thursday over the athletic field the phenomenal seventy year old president will cancel all classes and appear before the whole school accompanied by Bill Haley and the Comets.

         Sometimes we just do not listen. It is like when we are contemplating change.  Sometimes we do not allow change to occur because leaving the familiar behind and heading down a new road is scary business.  Sometimes it is because we believe that we live in the best of all possible worlds right now.  Sometimes it is because we are too tired or jaded or apathetic.  However, sometimes it is because we just do not listen.  Here in the church, that means that sometimes we simply do not listen to Jesus – and to Biblical prophets like Isaiah. 

         And so, we remain in our own little world – like the 8^th century BCE Judeans to whom the prophet Isaiah spoke. Listening to Isaiah was difficult at best because what he had to say seldom put him on the right side of the royal court and King Uzziah, to whom he spoke. You see, Isaiah was a visionary and could not help but see the world from a different and considerably more dire perspective than his listeners.

Isaiah’s warnings were frequently caustic and fiery.  In fact, in many ways, Isaiah was a radical activist, not violent or part of a mob (as perhaps the King himself would have wanted you to believe), but a real verbal flame thrower, the sort that put into stark contrast the intentions of his audience over and against their day-to-day behavior.  Nobody really liked to listen to what Isaiah had to say – especially when he was on one of his tirades about social and economic justice and the need for systemic change.

         Part of the reluctance to hear such negative news was surely because the reign of King Uzziah was marked by relative peace and security and at least by public prosperity.  It was a lot easier and far more satisfying to call Isaiah a purveyor of alternative facts or just chalk the whole thing up as fake news.  And it was hard to believe Isaiah anyway, given the economy.  You see, all in all, from a distance, life appeared to be quite comfortable. The stock market was buzzing along, and unemployment was low.  So – Isaiah’s fiery rhetoric only put a damper on the good life. 

However, archeological evidence would one day tell a different story.  As Biblical scholar John Holbert wrote, there were “a few large and opulent homes and palaces on the heights of the capital, Samaria, and myriad one-room hovels in the valley below.  The gaps between rich and poor were wide and growing wider.”

Holbert goes on to say: “There were a few rich folk who seemed inordinately fond of the temple and its elaborate worship, and many poor whose access to the goods and services of Judah is minimal at best.”  And, mind you, it was not that the rich were out to intentionally mess with the poor.  It was simply that the affluent folks were neglecting them, ignoring them, convincing themselves that, for the good of the whole society, it would be best to look the other way – pray for them certainly, but under no circumstances indulge them.  After all, if widows, orphans, and other assorted riffraff had a mind to, they ought to be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps simply by working harder and not depending on a socialistic safety net to pay their health insurance premiums and provide lunch for their kids at school.

Against that cultural fabric, Isaiah spoke the stinging words we just heard.  After hundreds of years of coddling the Israelites and giving them second chances, Yahweh/God seemed simply weary of it all:

“Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”
“Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices,
    rams and plump grain-fed calves?

 “Quit your worship charades.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
    I’ll be looking the other way.

         Back in the 8^th century BCE, such words declaring that God rejected the usual worship rituals would have been scandalous.  After all, those traditions were commanded in the Torah, in the Laws of Moses.

Now, we are certainly a far cry today from burnt sacrifices and slaughtering rams and grain-fed calves on the altar here.  However, even today, Isaiah’s words are scary stuff for a pastor who takes the Bible seriously.  I wish I could leave the prophet’s words tucked into the middle of the Good Book between the love poems of the Song of Solomon and the even more radical prophet, Jeremiah.  I wish I could let Isaiah’s scathing diatribe go - and not have to really think about it.

However, the prophet’s words haunt me.  As your pastor, needless-to-say, this passage is not an easy one to preach on. 

 As your pastor, who spends a great deal of time preparing for worship each week, I cannot help but wonder if our worship is inspirational and transformative as surely God wants it to be.  Or if it is just another prayer-performance and worship charade.  The thought that the worship through which I lead you might be burdensome to God is, well, let’s just say this text is a difficult one to preach on. 

However, when I read the passage closely, I realized that, as Mennonite pastor, Joanna Harader wrote, “Thankfully–considering where we are and what we are doing here–the heart of this passage is not disdain for worship, but a call to justice. “

She goes on to say: “The problem with worship is not the worship itself, but the danger that we might mistake our worship for faithfulness; that we might use worship to make us feel holy, thus letting us off the hook for the hard work of actual holiness.  For some people, worship can be like a ‘God pill.’ It’s a lot easier to attend church for an hour or so once a week than to try to follow Jesus all the time. But we can’t nourish our spiritual souls with worship alone…. At its best, worship does not provide holy feelings, but helps nourish our spirits for the hard and holy work of justice to which God calls us.” 

         Worship and justice go hand in hand.  However, the justice which Isaiah advocates is not symbolized by the image of the blindfolded lady holding the scales – everything being fair, even, and balanced.  That is not the way the world worked in the prophet’s day, and, unfortunately, it is not the way the world works today.

As Methodist pastor Morgan Guyton notes, “Biblical justice is not impartial; it is rather maximally partial to the welfare of each individual. God is saying that our Western morality of staying out of other people’s space is inadequate and is in fact an utter failure of our humanity when we use it to justify our lack of compassion as many Christians today do.”

And so, Isaiah – with Jesus centuries later following in his footsteps – Isaiah challenges his listeners to do more than go through the motions of worship.  He challenges them – because of worship - to be advocates for the powerless – from the widow who has no husband to the orphan who has no parents to the poor who have no money.  If you listen – really listen – to Isaiah, that prophet who was a mouthpiece of the Holy One, if you really listen to him, you will discover that there is only one kind of worship that is acceptable to God and that is worship that breaks down walls, builds bridges, and leads us out of our own little world.

         And so, if our worship is not inspiring and motivating us to step out of our own little world and confront such issues as poverty, hunger, the opioid crisis, and race relations, if our worship is not inspiring and motivating us to question sexual misconduct, the widening gap between those who have and those who have not, and the immigration crisis in our country, if our worship is not inspiring and motivating us to openly consider just what we as individuals and as the church are doing to usher in the Kingdom of God that we pray for each week, then we are participating in the sort of worship that so wearied God 800 years before Jesus arrived on the scene. 

         I have always believed that a preacher should sermonize with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  I also know that such an attitude flies in the face of those who come to church to escape - even for just an hour or so - the complexity and harsh realities that characterize what goes on outside our own little world.  However, to provide only comfort, to provide only a sanctuary from the myriad of global crises we face is not who I am – and is not what I believe the church should be. 

And so I side with Isaiah – and with his call for justice within the context of worship. As your pastor, entering this season of stewardship discernment with you, I hope that you will choose to side with Isaiah as well – and that you will reflect your commitment in your financial pledge to sustain the ministries of our church. 

In return, for as long as I am your pastor, I pledge that worship will be not be a retreat into the past but will instead attempt to motivate and inspire us to move out of our own little world and into the future.  In addition, I also pledge that I will do everything I can to sustain you as you do so. 

I know that making a strong commitment as a church to look outward and to step out of our own little world is not easy under any circumstances.  However, when money is scarce, it is even more difficult to trust that the Spirit will lead us where we need to be. However, I also know that churches that survive and thrive are those that intentionally integrate compassion, a call for justice, and worship.  A church that will survive and thrive is one that will ask the hard and often controversial questions and will struggle as a congregation to find – and act on – an answer.

I know too that, as Joanna Harader reminds us, “in practice, justice requires structural change–and we are all standing on this structure together.

Those of us who are pretty comfortable are understandably not too excited about the possibility of the ground moving under us–of losing our balance and sliding into a less comfortable position.” She goes on to say, “Being nice is a lot easier than doing justice. Attending worship is a lot easier than doing justice. Following rules is a lot easier than doing justice.”

         However, Isaiah has something to say about that conundrum as well, something important to carry with us into a bold future.  So, in conclusion, let’s listen again to the old prophet

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.
¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient,
    you will eat the good things of the land;

         There is forgiveness – for all the times we have insulated ourselves in this building, for all the times we have clutched at the past rather than embraced the future.  But, even more important, there is hope.  Because, you see, our God who does not give up on us – never has and never will. 

“Come.  Sit down,” God says to us. “Let’s work this out….Come and listen:  Blessed are the poor.  Blessed are the merciful.  Blessed are the peacemakers.  Blessed are the meek.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice….for they will be comforted, they will be filled, they will be called children of God.”