Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-december-2-2024
Isaiah 1:10-20
10 Hear the word of the Lord,
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the instruction of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
11 “The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood!
16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
18 “Come now, let us reason together,”
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 best from the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken
Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent, which makes it the beginning of the church year. Advent is also the time of year when most people who consider themselves Christians pay the most attention to the books of prophesy in the Hebrew scriptures – what we call ‘the Old Testament.’
Lots of people who think of themselves as Christians are suspicious of the Old Testament. In surveys, lots of Christians say they think it’s a waste of time to study the Old Testament. They say it’s brutal and violent, and the Hebrew tradition set out in the Old Testament is all about rituals and festivals and sacrifices and circumcision and not eating pork.
The problem is that lots of Christians think that in the Old Testament, God wanted all those rituals and festivals to be the basis of his relationship with the covenant people. They make the mistake of thinking that it was only when Jesus came into the world that the people were told that all these religious practices weren’t exactly what God had in mind when it came to his relationship with the people of Israel.
But today’s reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is a prophesy was spoken through Isaiah seven centuries before Jesus. And it might come as a surprise to some Christian readers that God was telling the covenant people that all their sacrifices and rituals and other ‘religious activities’ were a waste of time. Many of the people who were busily performing all these rituals were living sinful lives – exploiting the poor and the vulnerable and otherwise doing evil things. If they wanted to please God, they needed to skip the sacrifices and demonstrate love of their neighbors – “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (And as you might remember, when the Bible talks about widows and orphans, it uses them to represent all those who are needy and marginalized.)
At the beginning of this passage, God seems to be addressing this word to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. But those cities had long since been destroyed. God’s point seems to be that in his eyes, the sins of the people who thought of themselves as good religious Jews of Isaiah’s time were just as serious as the sins of those two notorious cities.
This should probably make us uncomfortable. If you listen to the loudest voices of the church today, you’d swear that God’s main concern is with sexual sins. After all, those are the sins associated with Sodom and Gomorrah. But the word being spoken through Isaiah makes it pretty clear that God resents the exploitation and neglect of the needy and the vulnerable at least as much as sexual sins.
We’re fine with helping the needy and the marginalized at Christmastime, as long as they act meek and grateful for our help. But the rest of the year, lots of us tend to take a dim view of the needy. We think of them as lazy and ‘entitled,’ as people who would be fine if they would just work harder and be more like us. And when it comes to the government help to the needy, it’s often those of us who talk the most about how we should be a more “Godly country” who are also most eager to have their benefits reduced, especially if they’re paid for with our tax dollars.
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus began his earthly ministry by announcing that he had come to “proclaim good news to the poor.” He reached out in ministry to the poor and the needy, and he said his followers should do likewise. In fact, before Jesus was even born, his mother announced in her famous prophesy ‘Mary’s Song’ in the first chapter of Luke that her son was coming to fulfill God’s plan to ‘lift up the humble, fill the hungry with good things, and send the rich away empty.’
And here in today’s reading from the prophesies of Isaiah, spoken seven hundred years before Jesus, God was already announcing that the heart of true faith was concern for the needy and the marginalized. And what God said through Isaiah makes it pretty clear he won’t let us get away with ignoring the cause of the poor and the oppressed, or with blaming them for their poverty and oppression, any more than he would approve of the covenant people doing those things back in 700 BC.
Let’s pray. Lord, you know how easy it is for us to get caught up in religious activities, and to forget the great concern you have always shown for the poor and needy. Protect us from the mistake of thinking that we are more blessed than they are because we are more deserving than they are. Line up our hearts with yours, so that we also “seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, and plead the case of the widow.” Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
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