The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany - February 5

Pay Attention to the Prophets

Isaiah 58:1-9a

Matthew 5:13-20

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill,” Jesus said.  Interpreting the meaning of the second part of today’s Gospel reading is tricky.  It’s hard to know what Jesus’ meaning and intent are.  These verses are a bridge to next week’s reading where Jesus will talk more about the law.  

Like last week’s reading, this is still the Sermon on the Mount.  These are Jesus’ first public words in Matthew.  Jesus is teaching the disciples and laying the groundwork for the whole of his ministry.  Even if interpretation is difficult it seems safe to say that Jesus is teaching his followers to pay serious attention to the prophets, the Old Testament prophets.

Today the Old Testament reading comes from the prophet Isaiah.  The book of Isaiah, as it comes to us in Scripture provides a sweeping, beautiful and prophetic witness.  But changes in vocabulary and perspective within the book as a whole indicate at least three different sections with different authors and origins.  Today’s reading comes from what is often called “Third Isaiah.”

Third Isaiah appears to have been written a little later.  It is a collection of prophetic sayings from the time of the return when God’s people are beginning to return to Israel after the exile in Babylon.  It was a time of uncertainty but also hope.  The people are returning home, but the temple and the monarchy are gone.  The sources of their identity and stability as a people are gone.  Without the temple and the monarchy:  Who are we?  How do we worship?

Today’s reading is a three-way conversation.

It starts with God speaking to the prophet:  You have a job to do!  My people are in rebellion; they are not practicing righteousness.  They need a prophet’s voice.

Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
   and did not forsake the ordinance of their God…

Then the people speak, demanding, almost whining to God:

‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?
   Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’

We are practicing religion.  We are fasting like we are supposed to.  Why do you, God, seem not to notice or care?

Then the prophet, speaking for God, replies:

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day,
   and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
   will not make your voice heard on high.

Look.  Look.  The prophet says.  This is a “prophetic device” used by the prophet to say:  when God looks at your behavior, this is what God does not like.  You say you're fulfilling religious rituals, but you use the fast to promote your own interests and to create quarrels.

As contemporary Episcopalians, we don’t do a lot of fasting.  We are encouraged to keep some sort of fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but fasting is not a regular part of our religious practice.  I wonder if more meaningful parallel for us might be the creed.  If Isaiah were to speak to us today, maybe he would focus on creed.  We say the creed as a central part of our worship every Sunday.  And we see it, I expect, as a very important part of our religious practice.  I think its perceived importance is evident in the depth of struggle it generates for many people.  They really worry if they have trouble with some particular piece of the creed.  Or some people abandon faith and religion altogether because they cannot fully accept the creed.

It is our affirmation of belief.  Surely it puts us right with God.  To recite the creed must be pleasing to God.  Putting ourselves in today’s reading, we might say:  I say the creed.  I affirm my belief.  (And, depending on how you were raised you may bow at the name of Jesus and cross yourself at the end.)  God, I’m doing everything right, but you don’t seem to respond.

Other Christian denominations might have variations on that complaint.  The creed is important, of course, in many traditions, but a Presbyterian might add:  I have studied and accept the right theology as it is contained in the Westminster catechism.  I’m not sure exactly what a Lutheran might say except maybe:  Whatever Luther taught, I know that’s correct and I affirm it.  An evangelical, of course, would say:  I have accepted Jesus as my own Savior.  I believe that Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior.

We are affirming our belief, our faith!  What more do you want, O God?

Isaiah the prophet might say to us:  Your creeds and your catechisms.  Your affirmations of belief that you have created.  You use them to make yourselves feel righteous.  You use them for division and judgment among yourselves.

But are these protestations, these particularities of belief making your life more righteous, more godly?  Do you think your personal belief is really the only important thing?  How do you live?

It’s probably important to pause and note that “It is unlikely that the author of Isaiah 58 wishes to discredit completely the function of ritual exercises and cultic practices. They are necessary and deeply meaningful practices. But they always have the potential to become selfish…”  (Tyler Mayfield, Working Preacher, HERE)

The prophet is not trying to discredit or eliminate the practice of fasting.  And, please, please understand that I am not wanting to diminish or chuck out the creeds. 

But if rituals and religious practice are not forming us for faithful living, we’re missing the point.  If our religious practices and words are not forming us to practice righteousness in our lives, then we are missing the point.

If salt has lost its taste, Jesus says…  If salt has lost its function in the world, it is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

God’s voice, through Isaiah, continues:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
   the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
   you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

This prophetic call to righteous living on behalf of the poor, the oppressed and the outcast is not unique to Isaiah.  This is God’s voice throughout the prophets of the Old Testament.  And Jesus instructs us to pay attention to the prophets.