10 Hear the word of the LORD,What are we to make of this? Click through to find out!
you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the instruction 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 worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
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.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
The context of the chapter informs us that God is not really talking to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 10. In fact by Isaiah's time those people were centuries dead, a cautionary tale of what happens when you turn away from God. In reality God is addressing the people of Judah here, the Israelites, his chosen people. In comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah he is telling them exactly how far they have gone astray!
God continues by ripping apart their temple services. He calls their offerings empty and displeasing. He calls their assemblies detestable, an abomination. Their feasts in his honor have become a burden to him. Their prayers are falling on angry, if not deaf, ears.
What wrongdoing could possibly earn such a rebuke from God? It's deceptively simple. These people are attending church at the right times, doing the right things there, looking to all the world like good, faithful folks. But that's all they're doing. Worship is a little island of "God stuff" in an otherwise uncaring week. They do not practice justice in their daily affairs. They do not care for the oppressed and hungry. They revel in their church connections but refuse to be family with those around them who have none. That rejection of their neighbor makes their worship meaningless. They've confined God to a building, a brief hour, a prescribed set of words and they fail to see or engage with him in any other way.
One of the greatest temptations we face is that of making our church an idol. The wrongdoing starts with a good impulse, a child's lesson: "That's the church. That's where God is." Then in the name of honoring God we build up the church, make it beautiful. We start to protect it. "That's the holy building...take care when you enter it! That's the altar...nobody should walk up there. This is a special place! Nobody scream or cry or say a cross word. You kids better be good this week, you hear?!?" In raising up the church we lower the rest of the world by implication. From there it's a short step to only the "right" kind of people being welcome. As we invest more of our time and energy into the church we start to regard it as an end unto itself. "We make this beautiful because it has to be beautiful! That's just the way it is! Don't touch that! Don't move this! Why in the world are you doing THAT?!?" By now we've completely lost touch with the original purpose of the church: a gathering of people together with God to do wonderful, uplifting, comforting, and compassionate things. Instead the church has become an object...an object of beauty and worship, but an object nonetheless. It might as well be a graven image, polished brightly for all to see like the idolatrous statues of old. They were pretty too. That doesn't mean they were godly.
When we've reached this point, it doesn't matter what we do in church. You can have great offerings and keep the church in the black. You can run it efficiently and never make waves. You can have the best music and great attendance by people who admire your work and the beautiful thing you've created. All of it is empty. All of that forward momentum only serves to confirm something that's gone profoundly wrong, like putting gas in a car that's headed towards a cliff. Everything looks great, but that outer sheen disguises a profoundly misguided process.
This is why God got short with the people of Judah. He gets angry with us the same way when we engage in this kind of "faith".
It's a tricky trap to wriggle out of. For most people the solution is just to quit church. We've lost a generation or two that way. That doesn't really help the problem though. Nothing changed except now fewer people have opportunities to know the love and comfort of God. But pouring time, money, effort, and heart into such a wrongheaded enterprise doesn't help either. Neither the bad (quitting) nor the good (giving more) sets us right.
Instead we have to listen to God's words in Isaiah 1:17. We need to learn to do good, to take up the cause of the abandoned and hopeless, the fatherless and the widow. It's not enough just to do good for your church. You also have to ask what good your church is doing for others. If you can't identify the second step in that process then the first is going to waste. Church must never become an end unto itself. It can't be that holy place where God is, the place where we visit him for an hour and then leave. Church has to be a grace-filled, gift-filled journey that benefits not just "church people", but everyone. The old song doesn't say they'll know we are Christians by our attendance record or how shiny our pews are or how black the ink is on our balance ledger. It says they'll know we are Christians by our love. The love pouring out of the building, into the streets and moments and lives of all we meet, is far more important than the love that's poured into the building. Without that self-sacrificial love all of the bells and offerings and time spent are meaningless. With that love and constant self-giving even the humblest act rebounds and reverberates a hundredfold.
Church isn't an end. It's a fountain of baptismal blessing flowing out over us and the world. Every Sunday we come and find it full. It spills out into our pews and aisle and right out the door alongside our footsteps. The momentum propels us throughout our week, reminding us what (and Who) is most important as we engage the world. No matter how much grace is demanded in our week, the need is supplied. The stream runs true and full. We ride the wave Monday through Saturday and return Sunday to find the font brimming once again, the journey prepared for us anew. That's what church is about. That's the kind of worship and faith walk that God loves because that journey is true to his story.
The font is full for each of us. It'd be easier to see if we didn't keep trying to dump it out in favor of the same old predictable emptiness. No matter how you try to disguise it with beautiful trappings, that's a poor exchange.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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