Bazaar United Methodist Church

Bazaar, Kansas

Sermon Text
Isaiah 1:10-20
James 1:27

Seek Justice

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27 NIV

10 Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the law of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
11 "The multitude of your sacrifices-
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations-
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
17 learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
18 "Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the best from the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword."
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. Isaiah 1:10-20 NIV

Isaiah, the prophet, was speaking to the leaders and the people of Judah in his day. And by the way a prophet is not someone who tells you how it's going to be so much as someone who tells it like it is.

Now, before I continue, I want you to visualize yourself removing your shoes and socks today. Then I want you to visualize a pair of track shoes with spikes or foot ball shoes with cleats or women's four inch spike heels because one of those is likely to get you today. You have been warned.

If Isaiah was speaking to the leaders and people of the United States today, his address would be only slightly changed. It would probably go something more like this:

10 Hear the word of the LORD,
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the teaching of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
11 "The multitude of your confessions, your whining and complaining -
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of sorrow,
of repeated confessions;
I have no pleasure
in the times you crawl to me repentant.
12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your obeisance is detestable to me.
Confession without transformation-
I cannot bear your evil presence.
14 Your rituals and dogma
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you bow your head and clasp your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
17 learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
18 "Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the best from the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will surely be devoured."
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

It doesn't feel very good to be called the people of Sodom and Gomorrah does it? Well when the prophets spoke up for God they simply said what it was they saw. And Isaiah saw a country that was full of lust for things and stuff, that was for getting ahead of Joe Blow down the street, that was immoral yet claimed to be religious. And Isaiah named it for what it was; Sodom and Gomorrah playing at church through ritual and rite but without engaging their hearts and minds and souls in the process; without seeking transformation. Beyond that Isaiah saw that they chose to do evil and failed to take care of the poor and the needy.

We certainly have plenty of that to claim for ourselves. It is a frequent embarrassment to me how little I give away to those agencies that do so much good. Aside from my tithe to the churches last year, I gave less than a thousand dollars away to boards and agencies that do incredible good.

Listen to what Isaiah tells us to do: learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. You would think he and the prophet Micah had been collaborating. Micah says: He has showed you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? But to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8) But it is exactly what Jesus meant when he said "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:35, 40) It is what he pointed to when he said "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." (Luke 10:27) He intended it not just for the person who lives next door to us but for those who are poor and needy anywhere.

We, in the church, have for so long leaned on grace alone and faith alone in our walk with God that we seem to have developed cataracts which have dimmed our view of what God has required through the ages. Our salvation may be free but it is not cheap. It is costly. And part of what it costs us is giving up control to God and practicing obedience. "Wait a minute!" you say. "I'm an adult now. I don't have to obey. I get to give the orders." Think again. Not if you're a Christian, a follower of Jesus, a disciple of Christ, a child of God. If that is who you are, then you have agreed to receive direction from a higher power; from One who is wiser than you are; in fact, from the author of life.

Our blindness to this fact has made us blind in other ways as well. We refuse to see poverty when it is in our path. We won't recognize our own wastefulness and self-gratification. And we absolutely refuse to believe that our wastefulness robs others of food and medical care that they deserve because we are selfish.

But our founder, John Wesley had a very different view of wealth and stewardship. It was his contention that whoever has food to eat and clothes to put on with something left over is rich. He says, "Be a steward. . .of God and the poor; differing from them in these two circumstances only,-that your [needs] are first supplied, out of the portion of your Lord's goods which remains in your hand; and, that you have the blessedness of giving." Most of us are little content to have just our needs plus a little met. We want our needs and a lot of our wants and then a whole lot more and we are unwilling to give up anything to meet the needs of anyone else.

Our new President has been telling us that all of us are going to have to sacrifice. Those persons who have agreed to cut their hours back rather than have their co-workers lose their jobs, know the meaning of sacrifice. Those who are laid off are likely to learn the meaning of sacrifice when their benefits run out. Most of us could simply give up some of our luxuries and do a lot of good in a lot of places.

Right now in Zimbabwe people are starving to death and dying from a cholera epidemic because they do not have access to clean drinking water, food and basic medical care. UMCOR is there but they need help. In the Khak-e-Jabar region of Afghanistan which is situated 6500 feet above sea level bearing the bitter cold of winter is especially hard for children and the elderly. The area suffers from an ongoing drought and extreme poverty. UMCOR Afghanistan is helping to deliver blankets, wood burning stoves and firewood because there are no trees and the people burn small amounts of brushwood in open fires to try to stay warm.

But, as you know, all need is not overseas. There is plenty to be done right here at home. UMCOR Sager Brown shipped $4.7 million in relief supplies last year both nationally and internationally. Domestic shipments included health kits, school kits and over 20,000 flood buckets delivered in response to flooding in the Midwest and hurricane storm surge along the Gulf Coast. And VIM trips to clean up and re-build communities devastated by floods, tornadoes and hurricanes are needed as much now as they were in the days immediately following those events. The clean up and rebuilding from Katrina is not over. And there have been several more devastating hurricanes since, not to mention the tornadoes and floods in our own state.

There is need everywhere. There is some in our own county. It is time we did something about it. How can we call ourselves by the name of Christ and only talk about doing good? Who can see the love of God in us as a community? Especially if they don't see us as a community of faith doing anything together to help anyone.

You see, when we change from seeking after what we want and start looking out for the poor and needy, something will happen to us. We will begin to change. We will come to a place where compassion and love are natural for us; where practicing forgiveness and grace are almost automatic and we will find that we have been transformed. But until we work in solidarity with the poor, until we follow the command of God to grant them justice, until we get out of our comfortable lives and into the uncomfortable position of meeting the poor where they live, we will never be transformed. Because we will not know what it means to truly love. We will not know because we will always think that the poor are different than we are. We will always think that they didn't have to be poor if they didn't want to be poor.

But the fact is that the economics of greed makes for poor people. If we believed that there shouldn't be poor people then every person who supports a family would make a wage on which he or she could reasonably support that family. Instead corporations pay as little as possible and the poor often work two or three jobs, leaving children at home, alone to care for themselves. Then we blame the poor because they didn't supervise their children. In recent arguments over immigration we have seen the economics of greed at work. "We need immigrants to do jobs Americans won't do." It's true. Americans won't do those jobs for low pay, long hours, and no benefits.

Isaiah looked through the eyes of God and saw reflected, not Judah, the "praise of God," but Sodom and Gomorrah, cities destroyed for their sin and violence. And he tells the people to shape up, to change their ways and thereby change themselves. He says religiosity is not what God is looking for. "Rituals are practices of learners (those who feel the need for change, growth, development, and learning), ritualism [on the other hand] is the continuation of the practice by people who have stopped learning. Similarly, we could say that traditions are the heritage of a community of learners, and traditionalism is the continuation of the heritage by people who have stopped learning." Isaiah names both of these in his diatribe against the people. They go through the motions but have no heart. They have no desire for change. They don't want to be different than they are. They quote the "Popeye" scripture to their pastor. "I am what I am." But most go on from there to comparison "I'm not as bad as____________" or simply saying God will accept them as they are. Really? Are you going to stand before a Holy God and say "I am what I am, accept me?" Are you comfortable with that?

Not one of us here looks at ourselves the way God looks at us. We don't even try to do so. Not one of us would think of ourselves in the light of Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge; that penny-pinching, miserly, little man. Yet in so many ways that is exactly how we are when it comes to giving of ourselves to the poor and even giving what we have; because we are not willing to sacrifice what we want so others can have a better life.

Throughout the ages the prophets have said the same thing. Do justice. Defend the widow. Look out for the orphan. Give to the poor. Larry says practice compassion, love, forgiveness and grace and you will be transformed. It requires compassion to do justice, to defend the widow, to look out for the orphan and give to the poor. It also requires love, forgiveness and grace. When we do these things we will transform the world for Jesus Christ because we, too, will be transformed. Amen.