Worship & Justice
I'm still learning. I'm still learning what it means to be a good advocate. What it means to be a good ally. What it means to be angry with and for our neighbors who suffer and are forced into weeping and mourning in a society brutalized by violence. It's hard for me to feel the sexism, injustice, and oppression in my bones as others do. It’s hard for me to see life through the experience of the oppressed. As pastors Aaron and Emily shared last week, the mass shootings in California and the murder of Tyre Nicholas at the hands of police is too much to bear. But we must, especially as a majority white (European American) community, stand on the side of justice and fight oppression whenever it raises its wicked head.
I'm also still learning that worship and adoration is when I don’t really ‘feel’ it. I come from a church tradition that connected whether God was present in worship to my emotional state during those 60 minutes at church on Sunday. Can you remember a time when God was so close you felt the heat of God’s love? Or a time when the absence of God was so intense you were left cold and disoriented? I have, and I’m sure you have too. I’m still learning that God has promised to be present and active no mater what I’m feeling.
I’m learning what it's like to stand with the oppressed and to be more aware of God’s abiding, sustaining presence.
Hearing these two things side by side, oppression and presence, may have you scratching your head, but this is the truth of our Old Testament lesson and the good news I want to remind us of tonight: God promises his sustaining presence to those who help the hurting.
Isaiah 58 invites us into a story that begins with an exhortation. It would seem the people are doing right worship. They are fasting. They are practicing sabbath. And these are the kind of people that every pastor wants. They are “seeking and delighting in God day after day” (v. 2). But God says to Isaiah, “I need you to go get the shofar out of the cabinet, and call these people of mine to assemble.” Isaiah is to “shout out,” “don’t hold back,” “lift up your voice like a trumpet.” Why? Because their practiced righteousness is fake.
Verse 2 tells us they are “seeking and delighting” as if they are a nation practicing the righteous ordinances (ordinances of justice), the mishpâṭ - tseh’-dek of God, but they are not. This notion of the righteous ordinances of God shows us that God is concerned for justice at a social level. God is concerned that the socially vulnerable receive just treatment within society, that workers are not being oppressed, that people have food, clothing, and shelter. God is also concerned that people are acting violently toward one another: “you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist” (v. 4).
This is not a new expectation God has for his people, “I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’” (Deut. 15:11, or Deut 10:17-19). Nor is it the first time Isaiah exposes their sin. In Discovering Isaiah, Dr. Abernethy points out, “Isaiah 1 strategically opens the entire book on this note [of social justice]. God is fed up with his people's sacrifices (1.11), does not want them to assemble in his temple (1.12), cannot bear their religious festivals (1.13-14), and is not listening to their prayers (1.15) because their hands are full of blood (1.15). As a result, God calls them to the following actions… justice that rescues the oppressed (1.17c).”
John Goldingay captures the irony of v. 3 well: “they look for YHWH to behave toward them with mish-pawt’- tseh'-dek but they do not embody these characteristics in their own life.” Apparently this is why God has not been listening to their worship (v. 9a). Their worship stinks, and God’s not listening.
It’s devastating that we can “seek and delight” in God’s way and yet forsake God’s justice. We have the capacity to see. We have the capacity to know. But that doesn’t automatically transfer into illumination and action. The right seeing and the right knowing and the right doing can get disconnected. We can turn our faces away from the light to embrace shadows. We can fail to see the light that enlightens us.
Let’s use our imaginations tonight shall we? Imagine a Christian employer that consistently gives money to missions but refuses to pay its workers a living wage, refuses to invest in their retirement, and only does the bare minimum to stay within government regulations. Giving money to missions is great, but not at the expense of exploiting human life. This is taking a sabbath while you wring your workers out for every penny they’re worth.
Imagine again, if you can, a Christian business that taxes their racialized minority employees with higher standards and a heavier work load without proper support. Or when it comes to “balancing the budget” or “righting the ship,” they target the most vulnerable people on their payroll. It’s almost as if these Christians we’re imagining are seeking to defy the mish-pawt' - tseh’-dek of God.
God says: Is this the kind of worship…? Is this the kind of fasting…? Is this the kind of Sabbath keeping that I want? For you to oppress those who need your help? No, no it’s not. Instead, if you want to fast from something, why don’t you start by fasting from oppression of every kind. That’s the worship I desire. A worship that leads to broken chains, split yokes, bread, shelter, and clothes for those who need them.
This is no small checklist. Which is why we must begin with the sustaining presence of God. If we as a community of individuals is going to have the stamina to help the hurting, we must be a people that tend to the presence of God in worship.
In verses 6–7 we see the kind of worship God desires, but notice their connection to the if/then clauses found in verses 8–10: then your light will split the dawn, your healing with come quickly, the glory of the Lord will go before and behind you; then I will hear you and answer, “Here I am”(v.9a), if you “remove evil” and ‘offer help’ (9b-10a.) Then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday (10b).
Sometimes the little things become the big things that we have to cling to… Light, healing, protection, and presence—these are gifts from God. Light that breaks through the darkness bringing forth the dawn. Sensing the whisper of God after a season of silence. Healing: the new skin stretching itself over a wound. (Recently I saw one of our children sitting with a friend while they wept; not talking, just siting. Sometimes just being present with someone while they are in pain is ointment to infected wounds.) Protection: the Glory of the Lord will go before us and gather up the stragglers behind us. Presence: the Lord will answer your cry for help and say, “Here I am.”
Beloved, this is what we need, we need the light, healing, protection, and presence of God. Under the weight of oppression, sexism, racism, classism, and violence, we need the sustaining presence of God. And God asks his people to practice justice and righteousness, the mish-pawt' - tseh’-dek, of God.
This is what I want and hope for each of you: That when you come here you encounter the sustaining presence of God so that you can go out into our broken city, nation, and world filled with the light and love of God to help the hurting. But if we are going to be a people committed to help the hurting, filled with light, healing, and protection, it must begin with the sustaining presence of God.
Let’s be honest for a moment. I would love for the music we sing to fill each of you with so much dopamine that you wave your hands in the air like you just don’t care. I would love that when we prayed mountains were moved and signs and wonders took place. I would love for our offering baskets to be so filled that there were none among us who had any financial need (Acts 2:45.) Yes. I long for the day when we have to sing more than one communion hymn because there are so many coming to feast at the Lord’s Table. And when every seat downstairs is filled at our community feast.
But what I long for more than all of that is for you to encounter the sustaining presence of God filled with light, healing, and protection, ready to help the hurting. This is what I hope for us as a community. But like you, I’m still learning how to do this… how to be chain breaker and a true worshiper.
In July of 2016, someone sent me a social media message: “This your cousin?” with a link to an online newspaper I recognized. You never know how you’re supposed to read those messages, and I hesitated to open the link, but I did, and unfortunately it was my cousin. He had been arrested for murder, and in 2018 he was sentenced to life without parole for capital murder. He was 33.
I got a letter from him a few weeks ago, and here are a few key lines: “I wish to hear from you more often… This prison life is lonely, man. Yet I’m surrounded by people 24-7. Now that’s a paradox. Mom is still with me, but I don’t hear from anyone else. Hit me back sometime…” These words hit me hard, and I could hear in them the words of Jesus in Matthew 25: “for when I was in prison you did not [write] me.”
Beloved, I don’t know what type of mish-pawt' - tseh’-dek God is going to invite us into as community, or you as an individual, but I can tell you we will not have the stamina to break the deep-rooted chains of oppression in our community if we do not tend to the sustaining presence of God.
There is no back up plan. God has put the power to help the hurting in our sinful hands. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. So let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Amen.
