The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - August 7

It's About More than Worship

Proper 14

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Referring to today’s Old Testament lesson, one commentator writes:  “With its stunning poetry, inspiring call for justice, and complex portrayal of God, Isaiah 1 is one of the most memorable chapters of biblical prophetic literature.”

On the other hand another commentator muses that the people who put together our lectionary—the schedule of Scripture readings that we follow—must have intentionally put Isaiah in the middle of August when many people are not in church…  because we can’t take the stinging force of Isaiah’s prophecy.

Scholars today think that the Biblical Book of Isaiah—had at least three different authors.  Today’s reading is from what is often called First Isaiah, written by someone actually named Isaiah.  Isaiah of Jerusalem.  It was written in the 8^th century BCE, a time when prophetic writing flourished.  Isaiah of Jerusalem was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea.

Two features were prominent in the lives of God’s people at that time.  First, the Assyrians were always threatening.  A hostile nation was on their doorstep, threatening their peace, safety, and way of life.  They felt threatened and insecure.  And second, within the society of the Hebrew people, both in the northern and southern kingdoms of Judah and Israel, there was what we would call today “significant income disparity.”  There were the very rich and the very poor, and not much in between. 

So that is the social context for Isaiah’s vision.  The more specific context is worship.  In Isaiah’s prophecy, God speaks to God’s people gathered for worship.  Can you imagine God speaking that way directly to us, gathered here in worship today?

In a different translation from the one we heard this morning, God says:
Why offer to me your glorious sacrifices, says YHWH?
I am satiated with your ram-fueled burnt offerings,
and with the fat of those fattened beasts!
With the blood of bulls and lambs and goats I find no delight at all!
When you come to gaze at my face, who asks this from your hands?
Stop trampling my courts; never again come with empty offerings;
incense is anathema to me!
New moon and Sabbath, calling a congregation to worship—
I can no longer stand evil assemblies!  

Isaiah is speaking to the upper part of that income disparity…  to the comfortable, the well-off.  Yahweh’s words are meant to be shocking.  The people would have responded that they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, worshipping according to Torah.

Yes, but, Isaiah says.  Yes, but.  Isaiah is not condemning worship.  Isaiah is condemning certain worshippers who have apparently come to see comfortable, routine, worship as the be all and end all of righteousness.

No, says Yahweh, in Isaiah’s vision.  Worship is not just a part of your comfortable lifestyle that serves to fulfill the totality of your obligations to God.  Worship is not some sort of “Get out of jail free card” that erases your failure to care for others in your community.

Put that way, it is an issue that is certainly still relevant today.

Isaiah’s vision continues with instructions for improvement:

Stop doing evil! Learn to do good!
Pursue justice! Rescue the oppressed!
Protect the orphan! Litigate on behalf of the widow!

You who have the means need to help those who do not.  Work for justice; help the oppressed.  Orphans and widows were particularly powerless in that society.  Exercise your power on their behalf.

They are words we need to hear, too.  Fight injustice.  Help people who need help. 

Each of us has individual opportunities to do that work in our own society.  But to name a few basic ways we can help…  help people who are hungry…  help support education, which is one of the best tools in our society to overcome injustice.

This summer the Daughters of the King sponsored a drive for school supplies.  I thank God for those of you who participated.  But what if everyone had?  What if each and every member of this congregation had brought in school supplies?  Spiral notebooks would have been spilling out onto the sidewalk.  We all have the means to help people in our own neighborhoods who can’t afford basic school supplies. 

And then there are the food collection baskets in the west foyer.  Again, I thank God for the people who regularly and faithfully bring in food donations.  I have a practice, which I confess I don’t follow 100%, but I try to keep on track.  Every time I go to the grocery story, whether that’s once a week or once a day because I always seem to forget something, I buy at least one extra item.  One extra item.  One nutritious item.  Or, of course, it could be more than one.  What if every one of us did that?  Every time we go to the grocery store, buy at least one extra item to be donated to the food pantry.  The foyer would be full every week.

We need worship, of course.  We need to hear God’s word in worship and to be fed at God’s Holy Table to remind us and strengthen us and empower us for the work we are called to do in the world. 

And we need worship for the spiritual sustenance of our souls.  Worship, here, is a place to encounter the living God.  It’s not the only place to encounter God, but it is a reliable place where we come face to face with God.  In Isaiah’s vision, God says, “Come now, let us argue it out.”  We are here together, with one another, in relationship, in conversation.   And in that relationship, God offers forgiveness and renewal.  “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”  In worship we are assured that God never gives up.  We experience God’s persistent commitment to us.  God never walks away from us.  No matter what evil the people had done.  No matter what we have done or failed to do.  God is always here with us—to chastise, yes, as the prophets remind us, but also to guide us and renew us in our life of faith.