The legalism of faith

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 * August 11, 2019

I felt led this week to do something I’ve never done before and might have gone on record saying I would never do…preach from the Old Testament.  Preaching from the Old Testament is challenging because it can pose problems bringing it into the contemporary; despite all of these and other reasons I can come up with, I was drawn to it very strongly, even before I read it.

Isaiah is the longest of the books of prophesy, with this first part acting as a theological lens for the remaining 66 chapters.  The prophets of the Old Testament  weren’t fortune tellers or prophets in the sense we might say…they were keepers of the covenant (the covenant being between Yahweh (or God) and the Hebrew people.  Isaiah focuses his attention on the southern nation of Judah.

These opening lines remind me of a sort of covenant lawsuit; one party bringing an indictment against another party for failing the terms of the covenant and invokes the consequences for the failure, or simply put, a breach of contract with damages.  This lawsuit states that despite God’s faithfulness, Judah has rebelled.

The offering of sacrifices was the crux of their redemptive system.  This atonement was required.  They would offer up the best of what they had, return it to God and deny themselves, thus the sacrifice.  They didn’t get the best…they gave God their best.  In exchange for their obedience, they received atonement, or forgiveness, from their transgressions.  So what happened, then, when God stops accepting sacrifices for atonement?  What happens when God becomes so disgusted that God rejects your best that you are giving up, telling you that God is sick of your rams and beasts? 

Not only is God rejecting the atonement offerings here, but God is also telling them to trample my courts no more.  The courts were the walled in portions of the temple; being partitioned meant there was limited space, limited to people…you guessed it, bringing offerings and sacrifices.  God is telling these people there is no need in their evening bringing sacrifices; God isn’t only rejecting these offerings, God doesn’t even want the effort.  No to the ceremonies, no to the rituals, no to the offerings, no to it all. 

This is some pretty severe stuff!  So what in the world have these people done to make God feel this way toward them…you might be wondering?  Because I am!  I want to make sure I’m not repeating any of these infractions!

If we read down a little further, we see, perhaps, what these people have done.  God counsels them to cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.  So were they not doing that?  Is that where they fumbled? 

Seeking justice.  This one we get all wrong.  We think justice is a balancing of the scales, an eye for an eye sort of thing.  Very legal, very punitive.  While justice does balance the scales, it does it in more of an “even level plane” sort of way, giving everyone the same advantage.  This doesn’t mean that everyone gets the same amount of help or the same justice in the same way…this means someone gets what they need to be on equal footing with everyone else. 

Rescuing the oppressed.  This sounds similar to seeking justice, but carries a more involved notion.  Instead of simply seeking to get everyone on the same level plane, we are to rescue the oppressed.  We are to go to those who are in trouble and rescue them.  Then we are given more detailed examples, being instructed to defend the orphan and rescue the widow. 

Orphans and widows; it’s interesting that these be the named chosen.  What do widows and orphans have in common?  Why is the oracle drawing special attention to these two specific types of persons?  Because they’re disadvantaged.  Because they’re easy targets.  Because they have no one caring for them, watching out for them.  Because they have lost their support systems and their lives have drastically changed, and they’re vulnerable. 

When this book was written, Judah was in a time of great prosperity.  The harvests were abundant, businesses were profitable, the economy was booming and there was no war.  Judah was doing so well, in fact, that they forgot from whom their prosperity comes.  This time of prosperity and wealth and security began to change God’s chosen people. 

The people continued to come to the temple and give the offerings in the same way they always had, and were instructed and expected to do.  To bring it into the contemporary, they were coming to church every Sunday and giving their money when the offering plate was passed; but the offering of their heart, the thing that God wanted most from them, had become corrupt and evil, made evident by the way they lived. 

God called upon them, begging them to repent, but repentance is more than saying sorry. 

God was calling upon them to change.  Not just calling…begging, pleading, insisting. 

The people of Judah violated the basic ethical responsibilities for life (they failed to love God and neighbor), and continued to seek God’s providence through hypocritical worship.  Worship is always to represent the authentic situation of the people, but here this community practiced unjust, evil living while oppressing vulnerable persons. 

There are so many directions we can go with this morning’s text; this could be a sermon about repentance, but it would be too easy to fall into the “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” cycle.  It could be about inclusivity, but I think that falls into something much greater.  So what I want us to focus on this morning, is actually us.

I have a question I want you to give some thought to:  what are you doing?  Not we, not us, not your neighbor; you. 

Are you coming to church on Sunday, participating in worship, giving your gifts and offerings, but leaving here and living a life of that has none of the tenants of Christianity?  It isn’t just being a nice person, or a kind person, or a good person, or someone who never says or does a harmful thing to anyone.  Now I’m not discounting that because that’s a right thing; but what actual good are you doing? 

This isn’t limited to the widows and orphans; each and every day we encounter persons who are in desperate need of our help; what are we doing for them?  Those who are oppressed by racism; what are you doing to right that wrong?  Those who are oppressed because they are women?  The young?  The physically or mentally challenged?  Those being trafficked?  Victims of violence?  Those sick and dying?  Those who find themselves as refugees with no home?  How are you responding?  What are you doing to bring justice where oppression and evil reigns? 

Because if you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. 

We as the church must labor day and night in action to be the cure to the disease of our culture.  We are to pray, then act.  You’ll find pretty quick that yes, it will eat into your personal time.  Your family time.  Your fishing time.  Your shopping time.  Your reading time.  Your TV time.  You will have to make sacrifices…and maybe those were the sacrifices God was looking for all along.

We become so focused on the “legalism” of faith.  We want checklists, and rules, and commandments; we need to be told who to let in and who to kick out and where to draw lines and we need to box Jesus in because a boxed-in Jesus is easier to handle and control than a free on-the-loose Jesus. 

So, today, where is your heart?  Are you someone who desires to walk everyday with Christ?  That’s what God requires.  Not our money, or the giving of our talents, or simply coming to church on Sundays…God wants your very life as a living sacrifice, meaning you don’t get to decide who, or what, or when; it won’t be popular, people won’t like it, but we must stand up to the forces that seek to oppress, or exile, or exclude.  

I want to close this sermon by mentioning covenant again.  We tend to think of the Old Testament people as people bound to God by covenant, but you and I are as well.  We are in a covenant to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.  Are we keeping up our end of the bargain?