WHAT DOES GOD WANT?

A sermon based upon Isaiah 58: 1-14

By Dr. Charles J. Tomlin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

February 6^th, 5^th Sunday of Epiphany

All of us are concerned about events taking place in Egypt.  Political experts say the protests of people currently taking place there will change the course of world history.

One scene that impacted me this past week was the scene of thousands of protestors on their knees in the streets, pointed east toward Mecca, saying their morning prayers.  Then, in the next moment, the protesters cease their praying.  They stand up, and proceed to create chaos in the streets for country and for the President, Hosni Mubarak, they want out of government.

While I believe the people have a right to protest and express their grievances with the government, and I hope there will finally be a peaceful transfer of power.  In our Christian understanding, there is something very wrong with the picture of people praying and then standing up to bring violence.   It just doesn’t seem to be what religion is about to be about.   The Coptic Christian Bishop in Cairo instructed the Christian community not to go out on the streets join such a chaotic movement, but many of them did anyway, ignoring and disagreeing with his views.

THE DARK SIDE OF RELGION

Of course, this is not the first time we have seen the misuse and the abuse of religion and religious practice.  Here in the U.S., most all of us still have the events of 9-11 on our minds.  The main motivation for the killing of 3,000 innocent American lives was religion----an extreme form of fundamentalist Islam which has declared Jihad, or Holy war on America.

How could people use religious belief; which is suppose to provide people moral value and hope, to be so misconstrued as a reason for hate and violence?  Well, the truth is Jesus had the same kind of problem with religion in his day.  You can’t read the gospels without understanding that one of  major issues Jesus had with his own religion of Judaism, was its desperate need for reform and for it the reformers to refuse the way of violence.  Who can forget Jesus’ powerful words recorded in the gospels about Jerusalem’s bent on violence and resentment to change:  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

 ³⁸ See, your house is left to you, desolate.”   (Mat 23:37-39 NRS)

What we also need to understand is that the misuse of religion is not exclusive only non-Christian religions.  Some of the worse abuses of religion have been under the name of Christianity and Christ.  It is part of the “dark side” of our history of faith that most want to ignore.   

For example, consider what in Salzburg, Austria, just before our nation’s founding.   In the town center sits a mighty fortress and castle.  It is also notable, that Salzburg's population swells each summer for the Mozart Festival.  Musicians arrive from all over the world for this world-class musical event.   Salzburg is a splendid and beautiful town, rolling in and out of the hills above the Salzer River.

But it was not always that way.  Salzburg is Catholic land. It always has been.  For many years its prince was also an archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church.  After the Protestant Reformation, many Lutherans settled in that area along side of Catholics.  Life was never too easy for them, for their fate depended upon the archbishop and his feelings about Lutherans.

In 1727, five years before George Washington was born, Leopold Anthony von Firmian became the ruler of Salzburg.  He resolved to rid his principality of its Protestant dissenters. "I would rather have thorns and thistles on my fields," he said, "than Lutherans on my land."   To his astonishment, even after he introduced repressive measures, 19,000 peasants defiantly registered as Lutheran protestant and adherents of the Augsburg Confession.   Leopold's response was arrests, prohibition of meetings, and the suppression of baptisms, marriages, and funerals for Protestants. On Reformation Day in October of 1731, he gave all Protestants this ultimatum: "Become Catholic or leave."

Thirty thousand persons left.  They streamed northward to Germany and England.   Some came to the new colony established by James Oglethorpe in America where they set up a Lutheran colony near Savannah, in Ebeneezer, Georgia.   Some fled to Leipzig, where Johann Sebastian Bach lived. So moved by their plight and thus inspired to arouse public sympathy on their behalf, Bach composed a contata based on Isaiah 58, our text today  (From a sermon entitled “What God Sees” @ www.sermons.com).

Before we get to closer look at this text, consider a major abuse and misuse of Protestant religion closer to our own time.  When Hitler rose to power and sent his armies to war, he engraved on every soldier’s belt was the motto, “Gott Mit Uns”.  It was to encourage every soldier to believe that God had sanctioned this war on the world. 

I think I’ve told you this story, but it’s worth telling again.  When I was living in eastern Germany, as a missionary, there was a small “copy” shop next door to our apartment.  I would frequent the shop often to make copies for my work.  Once, I started a conversation with the owner about church, faith and belief in God. 

The owner told me that he studied as a church historian, but he would never, ever enter a church to worship God.  Why was the man so turned off by the church?   He said that during the early days of the war, that Hitler began a draft and his family, being Lutheran Christians, were very much opposed to the war.  His Father went into hiding to avoid the draft, and to avoid participating in an “unjust” war.   It was the church who ratted on his Father and gave away his “hiding place”.   He told me he could never forgive the church for what it did.  Though he loved to entered churches and to study the church for its art and architecture, he had no inclination whatever, to ever worship God with the church.

When you begin to think of the “dark side” of religion, I think ever one of us who have been in church for a while, could come up with our own personal story about the hazards and hurts of being involved in a church or religious practice.  If we thought about it, just about any of us, could find some reason, some dark story, and some very legitimate reason, not to be in church today.   Most of us could point to some form of abuse, misuse or disappointment in religion or with or church.

This past week on North Carolina Bookwatch, D.G. Martin had a very interesting interview with a  writer from Charlotte, Andrew Park.  The book is entitled: “Between a Rock and a Hardplace—One Faith-Free Dad’s Struggle to Understand What it Means to be Religious (or Not).”   It’s the story of how a friendly atheist father deals with his three year old son coming home from his Methodist Church Day Care saying the word “God”.  The father himself grew up in a staunchly atheist household, but he is wondering how he should deal with his son’s curiosity about faith.   More interesting than how the father deals with faith is why his family rejected the faith in the first place, especially since his own great grandfather was a famous and well-respected holiness preacher in the last century.    Andrew Parks said, his own father, being a professor at UNC-Charlotte, made an intentional effort to raise his two sons atheist, because he believed that religion, especially religion as it was practiced here in the south and in North Carolina (remember Jim Bakker?) was bad for their intellect and their ethics.  Ouch! 

One other thing that becomes very interesting in this story is that Andrew Park’s brother, when he was only 17, rebelled against their atheist parents and became an evangelical Christian and still is today.  Andrew Park, says he is not against religion, and has a good relationship with his brother, but has no definite “feeling” or true “experience” of faith in his own life.  But he does write in his book, that he wants his son to be free to choose, and does not want to prejudice his son against religion, like his own father did for him.

GOD’S CONSTANT CALL

I’ve started today’s message with all these negative examples of religion, because this is exactly how today’s text begins.   Notice how Isaiah says to us to in verse one, “cry aloud, spare not,” and to “lift your voice like a trumpet” and what does he want us to shout about?   It’s about the people’s misuse of their faith and their religion.    The prophet continues, even though, “they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways,…  they take delight in approaching God” (vs. 2),  they are missing the mark and they have, literally, fallen short of the glory of God!  How they have fallen short of the glory of God is incredible.  It is not in their deliberate sinning, but in the very sincere practice of their faith! 

Isaiah 58 expresses rarely boldly and does not hide at all God’s immediate concern and disappointment with the religious practice of his people.  Even the most sincere and intense religious practices of fasting is analyzed and condemned as being useless.   God wants the prophet to expose the shallowness of their worship and the perhaps even, the superficiality of their sincerity.  And if they do sincerely worship the true God, they are found to be sincerely wrong in their worship, causing much more harm than good.

This kind of anger toward religion and religious practice puts God and the prophet with some rather strange contemporary “bedfellows”.    One of these “strange bedfellows” is outspoken Atheist Richard Dawkins.   He has been going around the world since 9-11, calling for a Jihad against all religion, including Christianity.   In his book “The God Delusion” Dawkins declares that; since religion does so more harm than good, since religious people are so ignorant in matters of science, and since he believes religion brings out the worse in people rather than the best, he believes that it is time for people in this world to move beyond the superstitions and the shackles of religion.  

But the problem that most scholars, even non believing scholars have of Dawkins and the new atheists, crying out against religion, is that they are not only overstating the negatives of religion, but they also deny the other negatives within society, within family, and even within the human personality itself.  In other words, yes, scholars will agree that religion has done some bad things and bad things are still being done in the name of religion, but the truth really is, that religion has also done some wonderful things for humanity, and that you can’t have any kind of human institution or experience that is void of risk for destructive or negative behavior.   In other words, we could think of negative things family life, but he would not believe that family life should cease.   We all can think of negative things in government too, but we still need government.   We could also think of negative things, flaws and failures in most all human lives, but I don’t think human life is completely worthless.  No matter what we humans do, whether it be religious or not, there will be failures, flaws, problems and negatives to contend with in our fallen world.   This is just how the world is and it is also in this fallen world that religion and faith must be practiced.  It is also why we all need God’s mercy, love and grace.

What is important to understand from today’s Scripture, is that according to the prophet, God sees the same negative kinds of things about religion and even more than Richard Dawkins.   God sees the wonderful positives of human life and the positive force the human response to faith (religion) can be in the world.   At least in this moment, the positive can still outweigh all the negatives, or we would not still be here.  But in order for life to continue, for the people of God to rise up from the ruins of their own negatives, failures and disasters, something very intentional must happen.   “Announce to my people their rebellion….”  (vs. 1).   Or as the New Testament also says, if there is going to be any judgment about what is wrong with the world,  “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God”  (1 Pet. 4.17).  The prophet here says, clearly and distinctly, that the people of God, in order to overcome the negative forces of corruption and death, and in order even to see the negatives that are in work in us, WE MUST ALWAYS BE WILLING TO EXAMINE, REFORM, RENEW AND OUR LIVES AND OUR FAITH, or as we say in Baptist circles, we must constantly be ready to “rededicate” ourselves to what we know we should do, when we discover how we have failed.   

As an example of what God wants the people to “examine” that is contradictory in their religion, notice how where the word “look” appears twice as a strong imperative in this text.  In verse 3 the people are wondering why God doesn’t appear to take special notice their sincere worship, but God says is verse 3, Look!   Look at yourselves….you worship but, “You serve your own interests….(vs. 3).   Look!  “You worship but you are still oppressing others?…   You practice your religion, not to bring good into the world, but you practice it just so you can “quarrel and fight…to strike the wicked with your fist” (vs. 4).  Thus, the word of God coming from this text says that we can’t have true, positive, worthwhile religion without the continual ability to examine ourselves and to reform and renew our commitment to God’s continually revealed truth that show do us good not harm.

The motto many of the “reformed” churches in America is a phrase that comes out of Latin, “ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.”  Translated into English this Latin phrase reads, “the church reformed and always reforming.”  This phrase first appeared in a 1674 devotional in the Dutch Second Reformation.   According to the reformers who first used this phrase, the church that was reformed under the Protestant Reformation, is always in need of further reformation, according to the Word of God. http://jimkang.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/the-church-reformed-and-always-reforming/ 

The word the Bible uses a stronger word that reform: repentance.   The word is not used specifically in this text, but the call for repentance is behind ever thought the prophet expresses.     As verse 12 testifies,  until the people change their approach to God, their religion and faith will remain in “ruins,” the “foundations” for the future will not be rebuilt, and the “breach” will not be repaired”  (vs. 12).  This prophetic call for change in Isaiah compares to the same prophetic call Jesus made when he started preaching: “the time is fulfilled, the kingdom has come near, repent and believe the gospel” (See Mark  1:15).  Jesus believed that in order for God’s people to receive the “good news” of the gospel, there had to be a time of self –examination and a movement of repentance.    

It should be the same for us, but “repentance”  is rare in culture today, isn’t it?  Last year Mark McGwire, the homerun champ, acknowledged what everyone already knew by looking at him.  He had used steroids.  He only acknowledged this now, after years of lying to his family, friends, investigators, and congress, so he can get a job with the Cardinals as a batting coach.   He still claims he only took performance enhancing drugs for their health benefit, not to strengthen his hitting.  He wants to be forgiven, but he is still not coming completely clean.

Marci Glass, says that “if you look around our culture, you see disgraced politicians from both sides of the isles, telling their constituents they are sorry for their indiscretions, while often their wives stand faithfully beside them.  Many of them will go on with their lives as if nothing has happened or nothing has changed.  Some even get notoriety through their sins.  Eliot Spitzer got a job on CNN less than two years after his scandal.  Michael Vick served time for his involvement in a dog fighting ring, but is back in the NFL, as soon as he was released.”  

I might also add that recently Ted Williams, the homeless street alcoholic with the golden radio voice, would have been given instant celebrity-hood without even a mention of his flaws, failures and struggles with his family and with alcohol and drugs, had Dr. Phil not exposed his flaws and encouraged him to rehab.  I hope and pray that Dr. Phil also quietly encouraged him toward repentance, especially as much as William was thanking God for his new life.

We offer cheap repentance and cheap religion in our culture.   While we all should believe and hope for second chances, our children need to know that second chances are not at all easy to implement (even harder than the first chance) and they do not come without certain spiritual and biblical conditions; one of which is always, as John the Baptist called, “fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3.8).  

MOVE BEYOND FAKING YOUR FAITH

In the final analysis of this text, the main problem God has with his people is that, even though they are sincere in their worship, to God it is still “fake” because they are not doing what God really wants.   Their religious practices all look good, they were all dressed up in them, busy fulfilling them, but it is still getting nowhere with God. 

What was the heart of the problem?   It wasn’t just that they were going through the motions.  It wasn’t just that they didn’t make the effort.   It wasn’t because were forsaking God’s commands for themselves.  Again, Isaiah says, “day after day they seek (God), and delight to know (God’s) ways,” acting as if “they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;” and “they ask for righteous judgment from God”  and “they delight to draw near to God.” (vs. 2).   In other words, their religion all looked good, and no doubt they also meant it to be good, and they all wanted God, but God and to the prophet their perceived “good” had  a “faked” faithfulness to it, which was taking them away God’s future blessings.   At the very core, we also see that this “fake faithfulness” was selfish, self-oriented, and a form of religion that rejected the most important thing God wanted in any religion.

The religion God wants is unveiled in verse 6 as “the kind of fast God chooses!”  What is that?   What does God want in our religion?  How can we tell the difference between a religion that is real and a religion that is still faking it?  Let me answer with what unfolds in verses 6-10.  Our faith is a religion, in that it is a human response to God’s grace.  Our faith also contains traditions and rituals that we follow to help us continue and be faithful in practicing our   faith,  true and faithful religion is never solely about getting the rituals or traditions right.  It is mostly about getting our relationships right.   Only when we treat others “fairly” or “justly”; only when we work to “break the bonds of injustice” in this world; only when we “share our bread with the needy,”   only when we are so serious about out faith that “we bring the homelss home with us”, says the prophet, only then----

         shall “Your light break forth like the dawn;…

           shall your healing spring up quickly…

          shall the glory of the lord be your rear guard….

Only then you will call and

          the lord shall answer…..

Only then, you shall cry for help and God will say, here I am…..

Only if you remove your finger from pointing…..

Only if you stop all your talk about evil…

        and only when you DO SOMETHING….

                ”when you offer food….

                when you satisfy the needs of others,

ONLY THEN will your light shine in the darkness and your gloom like the noonday.  

ONLY THEN WILL the Lord will guide your continually…

                   and satisfy your need in parced places…..”  (vs. 6-11).

These, the prophet says, are the conditions to get yourselves out of ancient ruins.

These are the conditions to restore the streets and make the world a place worth living in…

These are the ways to make God’s holy day “honorable.”

“IF YOU HONOR IT….NOT GOING YOUR OWN WAYS AND NOT SERVING YOUR OWN INTERESTS, ON PURSUING YOUR OWN AFFAIRS…..  (vs. 13), then,  “you shall take delight in the Lord….and then, God says,  “I will make you ride on the heights of the earth….. I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestors….for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

I don’t think there is a clearer picture in Scripture of what God means by “true religion” and I don’t think even the likes of an angry atheist like Richard Dawkins or an innocent agonistic like Andrew Parks, nor anyone else can argue with what is “right” about religion when we get it “right.”

There is a ancient Chinese story about an emperor who summoned children from all over the empire and announced that one of them would become the next emperor. “As you leave today,” he explained, “you will be given a seed. You must nurture and care for it.  In one year’s time, you will return here with your plants, and by looking at them I will know who is the new emperor.”

Each child received a special seed and hurried home with great excitement to plant it. One boy, Ling, faithfully planted his seed, tended and watered it. But it failed to sprout. He listened with dismay as his friends all boasted about how large and beautiful their plants were becoming.

A year later, Ling still had nothing to show for his work. He was afraid to go back to the emperor, but his mother convinced him it was his duty to obey the emperor’s command.  By the time he arrived at the palace, the great hall was already filled with beautiful plants and even some small trees. Ling stepped quietly into the shadows, holding his pot of bare earth.

The emperor arrived but seemed oddly unimpressed by the thriving plants. Then his eye fell upon Ling, and he commanded his guards to bring the boy into his royal presence.  Laughing at the spectacle of this boy with his empty pot of earth, the guards brought him forward.

Ling was shaking with terror, certain he would be put to death. He listened in astonishment as the emperor declared, “Today I have chosen your new emperor. Behold! It is this boy!”

“I don’t understand,” said Ling. “I failed to grow anything from my seed!”

“That is exactly the point,” said the emperor. “I gave each of you a boiled sweet, not a seed.  No one could have grown a plant from any of them. Only this boy had the courage and honesty to return today and tell me the truth. He alone has the makings of an emperor!”  (From Homilecticsonline.com, Feb., 6^th, 2011).

Before you and I can discover what God wants, we’ve got to do the important work of telling the truth, realizing what we are doing and what we are not doing, then hearing what the “mouth” of the Lord is saying to us right now.  If we want to rise from the ruins and have a future as churches who minister in our communities, we also got be people who are intentional about doing what God really wants.   Amen.