What I might preach someday if I was really, really brave.........or if God really, really insisted...
(this one is loooooong...)
Isaiah 58: 1-14 (from The Message)
1-3 "Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'
3-5"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
6-9"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places
9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again. 13-14"If you watch your step on the Sabbath
and don't use my holy day for personal advantage,
If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,
God's holy day as a celebration,
If you honor it by refusing 'business as usual,'
making money, running here and there—
Then you'll be free to enjoy God!
Oh, I'll make you ride high and soar above it all.
I'll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob."
Yes! God says so
Things are not good in the mainline protestant church...haven't been good for awhile. We've lost almost 50% of our membership since 1965. In the ten years from 1997 to 2007, the Presbyterian Church added 307 new church developments, but we dissolved 609 congregations. In the 1940's and 50's we were king of the hill, religiously, socially, and politically. (from Andrew McLachlan, "This is the Church, This is the Steeple, Look Inside and...?" Board of Pensions, PC(USA) Today, things are not good in the mainline church.
But, we've tried. God knows, we've tried. We've added 'contemporary services.' We've remodeled our sanctuaries to include the latest electronic gadgets and comfort. We serve Starbucks coffee with our Krispy Kreme donuts. We've built entirely new facilities that don't even look like churches. There's a bill board between High Point and Charlotte that reads "Church for people who don't like Church." We've dropped the word "Presbyterian from our signs. We've watered down our theology and polity so it looks just like every other mainline church. We've even constructed services with no prayers and no scripture readings because that stuff is sometimes confusing and we want to welcome the unchurched because we really need more members!...but today...today things are not good in the mainline Presbyterian church.
We've worried about our curb appeal. We've bought vans to pick people up. We've sent mailings to the community. We've built websites that attempt to portray our corporate life as fun and friendly and fresh. We've commissioned studies and polls. We've examined other denominations to adopt best practices. We've arrived at church every Sunday hoping this will be the week that a visitor will show up---and stay. And every Sunday we've gone home knowing that things are not good in the mainline protestant church.
How do we get more members? How do we preserve our church? We are doing everything we can think to do--and we are doing some things without thinking! Why don't people respond? We didn't used to have this problem. Whose fault is it that we have no young people between 25 and 45? We came to church when we were that age! Why are things not good in the mainline church?! Why isn't God at work to maintain the mainline protestant church? Doesn't God see how hard we are working? Doesn't God care? We come. We give our 2 percent. We work. .We pray. And it just doesn't seem to matter. Things are still not good in the mainline church.
The people of Israel would sit in these pews with us and shake their heads in agreement. they have been there. They understand exactly how we feel. When the exiles returned from Babylon in the 6th century BCE they thought they had seen the worst. Their temple had been destroyed. Their land had been lost. their political, religious, social power had disappeared. but them, they would tell you, a word of hope came from the prophet Isaiah. A word of comfort came from the prophet Isaiah. A word of restoration came from the prophet Isaiah.
And the people worshiped. They fasted. They prayed. They expected a glorious Zion. They expected to regain the power they had enjoyed as the chosen people of God. And they got the same thing we get...nothing. They could not get God's attention. All their fasting and praying...all their Sabbath keeping...all those promises that told them they would be, like before, the people of God...nope...not working...things were not good in the church of the people of Israel.
The people of Israel were lucky, though. God was talking to them...OK...through a prophet...but God was talking. And you heard it. God pretty much slammed them. Do you really think, God said, that fasting and Sabbath-keeping and prayer will get and keep my attention when you fight with each other, serve your own interests and oppress your workers? God laid it out for them...laying in sackcloth and ashes to show humility doesn't work when you only are humble to serve yourselves...to make yourselves look good in my eyes.
But God wasn't only talking to the people of Israel in the 6th century BCE. Listen carefully, for God is also talking to us--announcing to us our own rebellion.
"Is this what I want?" says God? "Do I want your contemporary services. your remodeled sanctuaries, your Starbucks and donuts on the altar? is this what I want?" says God. Your embarrassment over my ways, your need to put the gods of culture and entertainment before me? Is this what I want?" says God. "Shrubbery that hides your pride and websites that gloss over your selfishness? Is this what I want?" says God. "Your assumption that 'members' will bring you once again into power and position? your pathetic attempts to 'figure me out,' 'condense me into a program,' and 'sell me as a solution?'"
"Here is what I choose," says God. "I choose a people who recognize their sin and who humble and sincerely seek forgiveness even when they know I have already saved them. Here is what I choose," says God. "I choose a people who act to feed hungry people whether they deserve it or not. to bring housing to the homeless even if it rewards irresponsibility. I choose a people who make laws that protect all people from oppression, even when it means their own taxes will go up. I choose a people who will respect the poorest of the poor like they are the richest of the rich, who will set aside their fear and their pride and depend on me for their security and not on their salary or their job or their position in the community.
"Here is what I choose," says God. "I choose a people who do not engage in or condone violence in word or deed, even if someone else is violent first (or always). I choose a people who do not fight to get their own way, pointing their finger at those who disagree and talking trash behind their backs. I choose a people who always put others' best interest before their own best wishes. I choose a people who do not care if they are the biggest or the best or the most powerful. I choose a people who choose to serve me, and when that happens, then their light will shine and people will seek them out because they see not empty ritual, but life abundant and everlasting.
We, like the people of Israel, are in exile...and things are not good in exile. but we, like the people of Israel, have hope. When we serve as God wishes, we, too, can claim the promise that our light will be broken open like the dawn, and our healing will spring up quickly, and our vindication, accomplished in the life and death of Jesus Christ, will go before us, and the glory of YHWH will protect us from the rear. And our ruins will be rebuilt, and we will raise up foundations of many generations, and ride upon the heights of the earth...and things will be good...not because we are good, but because God is good.
Amen and Amen!
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