True Worship, Rooted in Justice—Lectionary Reflection for Epiphany 5A (Isaiah 58)



Isaiah 58:1-12 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

58 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;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
    they want God on their side.
“Why do we fast, but you do not see?
    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day
    and oppress all your workers.

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.
Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
    and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice,
    to undo the straps 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 rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
    you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

If you remove the yoke from among you,
    the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
    and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually
    and satisfy your needs in parched places
    and make your bones strong,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
    like a spring of water
    whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
    you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
    the restorer of streets to live in.

********************

                History records that Christians haven’t always connected their worship of God with the way they live their daily lives. We can go to church on Sunday, baptize our children, get married and buried in the church, and still live the life of the criminal. We sing God’s praises and then treat our neighbors as if they are trash, or at the very least, subhuman. So the question is, what does God think of such prayers? The prophets of Israel were rather straightforward when it comes to such things. Their message is that God is not pleased. For most of us, it’s not criminal behavior that we engage in, but the way we treat our neighbors, the people we work with, the people we live with, and the strangers we encounter, do not reflect the person of God. For a moment in time, we focus on God, and the rest of the week God doesn’t play a role in our behavior toward others. As we see in this word from the prophet Isaiah (likely Third Isaiah) God is not pleased with our fasting and our prayers. The fast that God chooses, looses the bonds of injustice!

                So, what might the prophet say to us, being that we’re not the primary audience of this message? To answer that question we’ll want to consider the context in which this word emerged. This message likely emerged in the post-exilic period. Large numbers of exiles returned to their homeland, but not all was well. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah depict an age of hope and disappointment, as the progress of renewal was taking much longer than hoped. Once again injustice had arisen among the people, and so this post-exilic prophet brings a word of judgment, letting the people know that their lives didn’t match their worship. If, as it is believed, the only prescribed fast in Jewish life was the Day of Atonement, then the people as they gathered for this important event in the life of Israel, their worship was, according to the prophet, marked by hypocrisy and insincerity. Therefore, while they prayed and fasted, God did not hear their prayers. They didn’t seem to understand why God ignored their prayers, so here the prophet lets them know the reason.

                What is the issue that the prophet fingers? Well, one of the concerns has to do with the way employers (probably landowners) treated their workers (Is. 58:3). Not only that but they “fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist” (vs. 4). So, what does God want? According to Margaret Barker, the prophet’s message is this: 

The mistreatment of the people for whom the prophet speaks is idolatry, a mockery of true worship. What is required is social justice and compassion (vv. 6–7), echoed in Matt 25:35–36. (‘Do not hide yourself’ [58:7b] quotes Deut 22:1, another indication of who the oppressors are). This will bring the glory of the LORD to their community (58:8; cf. 52:12) [Barker, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: Isaiah (Kindle edition, p. 172).]

                It is difficult to read a passage like this without engaging in a bit of introspection. Is Isaiah describing me? Does my worship have no earthly value? Have I missed God’s message while thinking that I have been humbly seeking after God? We ponder these kinds of questions as we navigate a world in disarray. We are witnessing the rise of religious nationalism in many places in the world, including the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States (and elsewhere). Religious nationalism is being used by Russia to justify its war in Ukraine. Christian nationalism is being used to justify attacks on public education, civil rights, rights of transgender people, as well as those who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual. We can go to church and give praise to God while embracing the America First message.

                When we consider the world in which we live, and our role in it, as people of faith, we can take our cues from social media and cable news, or we can consider the witness of the biblical story. That requires us to consider the larger narrative arc of Scripture, in which God declares the creation to be good and asks that we be our siblings’ keeper (Gen. 1-4). Yes, there are also pieces of the story that speak of defending borders and excluding folks, even passages that authorize genocide. Nevertheless, here in Isaiah 58, we are told by the prophet that God is not impressed with prayers that are accompanied by the oppression of others. Instead, God calls for prayer and fasting that looses the bonds of injustice, provides bread for the hungry, and brings the homeless into one’s home (this one is a challenge for us all).

                How might we respond to this call to pursue justice, seeking to set the oppressed free? When we consider matters of social justice, one might hear a call for systemic changes, where the government takes the lead in rectifying social inequities. Others argue that the government should get out of the way, and instead focus on charity and philanthropy. Leave it to the churches to fill in the gaps, is a word we often hear. Of course, the churches can’t do it by themselves (and if anyone has been paying attention religious institutions are on the decline—see Andrew Root’s book Churches and the Crisis of Decline). Is what Isaiah calls for charity? Or is he calling for the nation as a whole to respond to the needs of those on the margins? I believe that churches and faith communities should continue to fill in the gaps, while also advocating for the government to do its part to alleviate the root causes of these problems.

                When we read Isaiah 58 we must keep in mind that many of the people he is addressing are returning exiles. They may have been pondering the question of the community’s responsibility for its people, especially for the homeless and displaced. When they returned they wanted to reestablish some of the earlier trappings of normal life, including worship in a Temple (which they attempted to rebuild with the permission of the Persian government). That was important, but concern for the welfare of the people was the first priority. In fact, it was God’s priority. Thus, the true fast seeks to provide food for the hungry and shelter for the homeless. Yes, when we embrace God’s call to pursue justice, then “light shall break forth like the done, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard” (Is. 58:8). When we pursue justice, God hears our prayers and answers “here I am” when we find ourselves in trouble (vs. 9). This is the way the people of God are to live in the land of their redemption. In this, there is hope for the people.

                It is again fitting to remember that one of the primary messages of the season after Epiphany is that the light shines in the darkness. That is the message we hear in Isaiah 58. When we offer the hungry food and “satisfy the needs of the afflicted” then “light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom will be like noonday” (Is. 58:10). Speaking to people who live in a desert region, there is also the promise of God acting so that the people will be “like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.” For desert people that image is powerful. It speaks to God’s provision. We might even envision the living water flowing from the throne of God in Revelation 22. If this call is embraced, then God will restore the land, and the people will be known as the “repairer of the breach” (Is. 58:12).

                What does God require of us? Scripture offers us an answer in the form of two commandments—love God with your entire being (Deut. 6:4-5) and your neighbor (Lev. 119:18). It is a message that Jesus embraces: 

37 He said to him, ”'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two ommandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 22:37-40). 

We must recognize that God doesn’t distinguish between justice and worship. True worship, includes justice, which is why Jesus connects our Love of God with our love of our neighbor. The pursuit of justice, however, does not preclude gathering for worship. As Ron Allen and Clark Williamson noted, when we set aside worship in pursuit of justice this can lead to “arid moralism evident in the view that social action is sufficient and that we may sidestep the heart of the matter—the love of God for each and all and for all those whom God loves” [Preaching the Old Testament, p. 21].

                So, we hear the call of God to pursue justice, even as we worship God. There is a term that derives from Judaism, that reminds us that hope involves action. The phrase is Tikkun Olam, often translated as “to heal the world.” To heal the world is a calling that can feel overwhelming. What is declared here in Isaiah 58 might seem overwhelming to us. So, how do we proceed? Do we throw up our hands with the author of Ecclesiastes, who declared: “Consider the work of God; who can make straight what he has made crooked?” (Eccl. 7:13). The word we hear in Isaiah 58, suggests that we are called to make straight what is crooked. As we ponder this concern, I offer this as a word of hope from David Arnow’s book Choosing Hope:

The best way to learn that the world can be fixed is to start by fixing our small piece of it. Once we start, we find evidence of the changes we’ve wrought. When measured in small increments and over the long haul that evidence strengthens and affirms the practical basis for the hope that inspired the work at the outset. Hope and tikkun olam create the elements of a positive feedback loop in which hope embodies efforts to repair the world, those efforts strengthen hope, and so it goes, on and on. [Choosing Hope, pp. 45-46].

When we embrace this calling our light, the light of God, will shine through us as justice rolls on and we embrace our calling to join God’s people in being “repairers of the breach.”

  

 Image Attribution Santa Prassede, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54439 [retrieved January 21, 2023]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa_Prassede_-_Mosaic,_Chapel_of_San_Zeno.JPG.       

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