Couldn’t Be Clearer

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

In Cable, Wisconsin there is a very small Congregational United Church of Christ where my family used to worship when my parents couldn’t stand one more parochial, conservative Presbyterian sermon from the pulpit of the church where we actually held our membership.  Joe Jenkins was the minister in Cable.  I worked as an intern with him for a couple of summers when I was in seminary which were some of the happiest summers of my life.  But before that, when my family still lived in Ashland, we would spend as many days as we could at our summer cabin and we would worship in Cable.  Joe was quite a story-teller, especially on the first Sunday after returning from vacation when he would spend a good half-hour regaling the congregation about all the moments of some road trip he and Lois took together.  And he would still preach on those Sundays, and he would offer a lengthy pastoral prayer and there were always four hymns with long introductions to each one.  Worship in Cable was an investment of time.

Our Wisconsin cabin burned down some years ago and my mother sold the property so we don’t go back to Cable very often any more.  Joe Jenkins has long since died but in keeping with his first Sunday after vacation tradition, let me just say that on our vacation we spent three weekends with family – my mother’s extended family for a reunion held in Indiana, Warren’s mother, stepfather and sisters in Florida, and my nephew’s wedding in Minnesota.  I’d love to tell you lots of stories from our vacation but they would be as boring to you as Joe Jenkins’ always were to us so, in brief, I relaxed, soaked up tons of family love, and became addicted to yet another detective series – who knew there were so many!  Some of you know we were in Minnesota the day after the 35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi river.  It was a devastating event for Minnesotans and now it is an incredibly vulgar political morass.  No one we knew was on the bridge at the time but that is only accidental.  It is a main artery through the heart of the city connecting the north suburbs, where I attended seminary, to the University, central city, and south suburbs of Minneapolis.  Everyone who lives in Minneapolis has crossed the river on 35W.

One thing I especially like about vacation time is that it allows me to view our life together in the church from something of a distance and that is always a healthy pursuit.  Our church’s day-to-day activities, week-to-week worship services, month-to-month meetings can keep one from gaining the perspective that comes when one pushes the pause button.  I didn’t come to any earth-shattering conclusions and I’m not planning any substantial changes in my work or our work together though I am resolved to get my filing done and to keep my office more tidy.  There are some interesting church-wide conversations ahead about priorities for ministry and it’s something of a political year – perhaps you’ve noticed – so we have some good Second Hour topics planned, linking faith and public life, exploring how and whether our faith influences our opinions about the myriad issues candidates are discussing.  And, most wonderful, we have a year of worship to plan – services that celebrate, memorialize, energize, hopefully, comfort, inspire, educate, honor God – all the things worship ought to do.

In the passage I read a moment ago from the beginning of Isaiah, the prophet describes God’s weariness with the rituals of worship that have become more important to the community than the critical tasks God requires.  Your worship rituals have become a burden to me, Isaiah wrote.  Even though you will pray many times, I will not listen to you.  Clean up.  Learn to do good.  Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.  As prophetic admonishments go, this one is about as clear as it gets.  Rituals are not enough and if that’s all we do to demonstrate our commitment to God, blood on our hands from some sacrificed goat, ashes on our foreheads, smiles of satisfaction that we actually came to worship this morning, then we’ve become a burden to God.  And I can scarcely think of anything much worse than to feel as if we’ve become a burden to God.  I would much rather do things that bring joy to God, if I can.  Wouldn’t you?

And what would those things be?  Using illustrations of his time, he lists these: cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.  The first ones transcend the years – stop doing evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed.  We cannot pretend we don’t know what Isaiah was talking about.  Too many of us, myself included, hide beneath rocks that we think protect us from these responsibilities.  We don’t do evil intentionally!  We’re studying, reading, praying all the time to do more good in the world.  What does justice look like?  Shouldn’t we all agree about the definition of justice before we act?  And rescue the oppressed?  We do that!  We send money to Church World Service, Twin Pines Housing Trust, LISTEN.  Close Guantanamo?  Are we sure the prisoners there are actually oppressed?  Maybe there are a few terrorists mixed among them.  What if we accidentally let them out?  Doesn’t justice for some look like oppression for others?  And aren’t there people who have made bad choices and that’s why they’re in dire straights?  Will they learn anything from their mistakes if we just keep extending mercy to them?

And then there are Isaiah’s final two admonitions – defend the orphan, plead for the widow.  We know, don’t we, that orphans and widows were in particularly vulnerable positions in ancient Israel.  No economic support, the abrupt loss of status, widows and orphans might be taken into the homes of the brothers of their husbands and fathers but not always and not comfortably.  Usually, they were forced to beg for food, for shelter, for protection of any kind.  It’s almost impossible to imagine such circumstances today.  So instead of thinking about widows and orphans, the subjects of those requirements, let’s look at the verbs, defend and plead.  These are verbs that assume the presence of another authority, don’t they?  If one is to defend, it must be again or from someone else, and if someone is to plead, it must be to an authority or person.  In other words, all of these requirements are actions – plead, defend, rescue, seek, learn, cease.  They are all words carefully chosen by Isaiah to convey God’s will, God’s hopes for us. 

As you know, in the Biblical prophetic tradition, the prophet does not stand outside of the community of faith to critique its life like a movie critic or a book reviewer.  Rather, the prophetic message to a community is always delivered by one of its own.  The prophets’ words of judgment on our religious lives are informed and insightful because the prophet is one of us.  They bear a ring of truth because they’re from the inside.  Can we hear Isaiah’s words as if he were a citizen of the United States?  a member of our church?  on the Board of Elders?  Can we picture Isaiah as the child who grew up among us and wonders, now that he or she is an adult, why we didn’t do more?  Do we have ears for these words?  Or have we become so comfortable in our protected, Upper Valley lives that the tasks Isaiah outlines seem impossible.  Do we weary our God?  Are we doing the important work?  Are we doing the right things?  Are we placing our energy, our resources, our time in the right places?  These are the questions I often find myself asking while I’m on vacation. 

It’s probably a good thing to limit one’s vacation time.  Too much reflecting and evaluating is a most effective way to keep from doing.  The vision Isaiah had, way back when, a vision of devout, ritualistic people doing useless things that wear God out, is still a worthy template for evaluation.  But the goals and objectives, to use the parlance of the 21st century, couldn’t be clearer and I would rather be doing the things that bring God joy and hope and trust.  And I’m pretty sure you would too.  Amen.