Getting It Right For All Of The Wrong Reasons
Sermon
Between Gloom and Glory
First Lesson Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany
The young basketball player, who had just been removed from the game, looked at his coach with exasperation and said, "But, Coach, I was playing in the right spot for the 2-3 zone defense!" The coach, trying to remain calm, said, "Yes, Johnny, you are right about that, but we were not playing a 2-3 zone defense. I was calling out a man-to-man defense and you were assigned to guard number two, three. I was calling out your man's number, not a zone defense."
The intricacies of basketball and its finer points may not be appreciated by all of us, but we can understand the coach's and the player's frustration. In a way, both were right. The player heard his coach saying, "Johnny, two, three! Two, three!" What the player thought he understood was a call from the bench for a certain type of zone defense. What the coach intended was for Johnny to guard player number 23. Johnny was right, but for the wrong reason. As a result, number 23 scored two easy baskets before the coach could get Johnny out of the game.
This week's lection is a perfect follow-up to the words from Micah last week. They are similar in that there seems to be a conversation going on like the one that was recorded in Micah. But this one is stronger. It feels more like an argument. The conversation in Micah is like a polite discussion between an interested lay person and an educated clergy person. There is some tension in the Micah text, but it is not anywhere near as intense as the argument taking place here in Isaiah 58.
The people are complaining that their religious activities are not effective. The prophet is quoting their objections. He notes their complaint. They have fasted but no one seems to have noticed. They have tried fasting, they have attempted to keep the religious form as a pure as possible, but no one, especially God, seems to have a clue that they are doing so.
They want results. They want to be noticed for their penitence. They are demanding a religion that can be marketed as something that will deliver a noticeable return. There is bitterness in their complaining. They do not understand why God does not hear them. They believe that by properly following the format designed by their very own priests and religious leaders they will experience the desired result of a religious experience, an encounter with God.
You can't blame them, really. They want what we want. We want our efforts to matter. We may not say it out loud, but we wouldn't mind it if our proper actions and attitudes were noticed once in awhile.
If we go to church every Sunday we want it to mean something in our lives. We want it to be something we can point to and say, "See, when I was active in the worshiping life of the congregation, I was able to experience God."
Generally speaking, ministers spend a lot of time planning worship. Many pay a lot of attention to detail. They review each service. When they look at the upcoming Sunday or special occasion worship services, they ask about the theatrics and the theology. "Is the service moving in such a way that the worshiper will be moved to experience God? Is the theology behind the various aspects of the service consistent with who we say we are?" A friend of mine in ministry says that "failing to plan carefully each worship service is like getting in your car to go on vacation with no idea about where you want to go."
How we worship is important. The content matters. To be sure, the service should be carefully coordinated, but our faith and our relationship with God does not end there. At most it is but the first step.
A friend of mine was planning to take his youth group to Mexico on a work trip to build homes. His youth group had never done something like this before, so he wanted to be as prepared as possible. In addition to all the work that went into fundraising, material gathering, and other logistics, he spent a great deal of time with the youth studying the Bible, especially paying attention to the words of the prophets and Jesus concerning the service of the poor.
They had Bible studies in their youth group meetings on Amos and Micah. They posted the words from Micah 6:8 on the wall of their youth room, "What does the Lord require? Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God." They carefully studied Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and goats. My friend did everything he could to make them aware of the the call of the scriptures to work among the poor.
After completing their work in Mexico (they built a small house and an outhouse for a woman named Elvita and her family. She and her young children had been sleeping under a plastic cover and three pieces of plywood), the youth group stopped at Disneyland to celebrate their efforts. The young people got together for dinner in the shadow of the Matterhorn and shared some of their stories from the week. One young man asked my friend, "Why didn't we do this sooner? I want to become a Christian. Now that I know that this is what it means to be a Christian I am ready to make a commitment." My friend was thrilled with this question and comment. He said to the young man, "This is great. We can begin to talk some more about what this means." My friend wanted to find out something else. "How much do you think the Bible studies and the discussions helped you come to this decision?" The teenager said, "Bible studies? I do not think I could repeat a single idea or thought that came out of those. All I know is that before I had no idea about what it meant to be a Christian but now, after working with Elvita and her kids, I have seen faith and belief in action."
That young man has figured out what the prophet wants the people he is arguing with to understand: if you want to discover a relationship with God the best way to do it, not the only way, but the finest way, is to "share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house ... Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer." There is nothing wrong with worship. Fasting and prayer are two of the most powerful opportunities one might have to experience the grace of God. But they are not the only paths to God. It is one thing to pray for the needy.
But it is something altogether different to roll up our sleeves, pick up our hammers and our shovels and, in the name of God, "loose the bonds of injustice."
The promise of this text says that when we act this way God will hear our prayers. There is a danger here because it would be easy to interpret this to mean that God hears us when we are good and doing right things. It would be tempting to turn this into a sort of "do the right thing and you'll get God's attention" kind of sermon. In some ways, that is a legitimate understanding of this scripture. However, it is also a very simplistic and elementary interpretation, too.
A deeper look into the text reveals that what is at work here is not a simplistic formula that can be put into practice in order to control God's actions toward us. Instead, what we find is an announcement that when we live our lives in the service of others, when justice and righteousness are the focus of our actions and our intentions, when the hungry, the homeless, the needy, and the naked are cared for, we will discover in those very concrete and specific actions, that we are a part of God's righteous and loving nature. By caring for each other and our world in the name of the God we worship we will discover the very strength and happiness of heaven itself.
This isn't easy and it does not always bring warm and fuzzy feelings with it. Sometimes the work is frustrating. There are times when it seems, no matter how hard we try, as though we are not really getting too much done. But the promise from scripture is not that it will feel good. What we are promised is that by participating in these efforts our hearts will begin to discover the true nature of God. Something of our very selves will be sacrificed. We will not be the same. But that, by itself, may be more than enough to carry us through this life.
Frederick Buechner wrote, "To sacrifice something is to make it holy by giving it away for love." 1 May the sacredness of God's love be made real in our lives as we sacrifice and serve together in the holy name of God.
____________
1. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 83.
The intricacies of basketball and its finer points may not be appreciated by all of us, but we can understand the coach's and the player's frustration. In a way, both were right. The player heard his coach saying, "Johnny, two, three! Two, three!" What the player thought he understood was a call from the bench for a certain type of zone defense. What the coach intended was for Johnny to guard player number 23. Johnny was right, but for the wrong reason. As a result, number 23 scored two easy baskets before the coach could get Johnny out of the game.
This week's lection is a perfect follow-up to the words from Micah last week. They are similar in that there seems to be a conversation going on like the one that was recorded in Micah. But this one is stronger. It feels more like an argument. The conversation in Micah is like a polite discussion between an interested lay person and an educated clergy person. There is some tension in the Micah text, but it is not anywhere near as intense as the argument taking place here in Isaiah 58.
The people are complaining that their religious activities are not effective. The prophet is quoting their objections. He notes their complaint. They have fasted but no one seems to have noticed. They have tried fasting, they have attempted to keep the religious form as a pure as possible, but no one, especially God, seems to have a clue that they are doing so.
They want results. They want to be noticed for their penitence. They are demanding a religion that can be marketed as something that will deliver a noticeable return. There is bitterness in their complaining. They do not understand why God does not hear them. They believe that by properly following the format designed by their very own priests and religious leaders they will experience the desired result of a religious experience, an encounter with God.
You can't blame them, really. They want what we want. We want our efforts to matter. We may not say it out loud, but we wouldn't mind it if our proper actions and attitudes were noticed once in awhile.
If we go to church every Sunday we want it to mean something in our lives. We want it to be something we can point to and say, "See, when I was active in the worshiping life of the congregation, I was able to experience God."
Generally speaking, ministers spend a lot of time planning worship. Many pay a lot of attention to detail. They review each service. When they look at the upcoming Sunday or special occasion worship services, they ask about the theatrics and the theology. "Is the service moving in such a way that the worshiper will be moved to experience God? Is the theology behind the various aspects of the service consistent with who we say we are?" A friend of mine in ministry says that "failing to plan carefully each worship service is like getting in your car to go on vacation with no idea about where you want to go."
How we worship is important. The content matters. To be sure, the service should be carefully coordinated, but our faith and our relationship with God does not end there. At most it is but the first step.
A friend of mine was planning to take his youth group to Mexico on a work trip to build homes. His youth group had never done something like this before, so he wanted to be as prepared as possible. In addition to all the work that went into fundraising, material gathering, and other logistics, he spent a great deal of time with the youth studying the Bible, especially paying attention to the words of the prophets and Jesus concerning the service of the poor.
They had Bible studies in their youth group meetings on Amos and Micah. They posted the words from Micah 6:8 on the wall of their youth room, "What does the Lord require? Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God." They carefully studied Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and goats. My friend did everything he could to make them aware of the the call of the scriptures to work among the poor.
After completing their work in Mexico (they built a small house and an outhouse for a woman named Elvita and her family. She and her young children had been sleeping under a plastic cover and three pieces of plywood), the youth group stopped at Disneyland to celebrate their efforts. The young people got together for dinner in the shadow of the Matterhorn and shared some of their stories from the week. One young man asked my friend, "Why didn't we do this sooner? I want to become a Christian. Now that I know that this is what it means to be a Christian I am ready to make a commitment." My friend was thrilled with this question and comment. He said to the young man, "This is great. We can begin to talk some more about what this means." My friend wanted to find out something else. "How much do you think the Bible studies and the discussions helped you come to this decision?" The teenager said, "Bible studies? I do not think I could repeat a single idea or thought that came out of those. All I know is that before I had no idea about what it meant to be a Christian but now, after working with Elvita and her kids, I have seen faith and belief in action."
That young man has figured out what the prophet wants the people he is arguing with to understand: if you want to discover a relationship with God the best way to do it, not the only way, but the finest way, is to "share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house ... Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer." There is nothing wrong with worship. Fasting and prayer are two of the most powerful opportunities one might have to experience the grace of God. But they are not the only paths to God. It is one thing to pray for the needy.
But it is something altogether different to roll up our sleeves, pick up our hammers and our shovels and, in the name of God, "loose the bonds of injustice."
The promise of this text says that when we act this way God will hear our prayers. There is a danger here because it would be easy to interpret this to mean that God hears us when we are good and doing right things. It would be tempting to turn this into a sort of "do the right thing and you'll get God's attention" kind of sermon. In some ways, that is a legitimate understanding of this scripture. However, it is also a very simplistic and elementary interpretation, too.
A deeper look into the text reveals that what is at work here is not a simplistic formula that can be put into practice in order to control God's actions toward us. Instead, what we find is an announcement that when we live our lives in the service of others, when justice and righteousness are the focus of our actions and our intentions, when the hungry, the homeless, the needy, and the naked are cared for, we will discover in those very concrete and specific actions, that we are a part of God's righteous and loving nature. By caring for each other and our world in the name of the God we worship we will discover the very strength and happiness of heaven itself.
This isn't easy and it does not always bring warm and fuzzy feelings with it. Sometimes the work is frustrating. There are times when it seems, no matter how hard we try, as though we are not really getting too much done. But the promise from scripture is not that it will feel good. What we are promised is that by participating in these efforts our hearts will begin to discover the true nature of God. Something of our very selves will be sacrificed. We will not be the same. But that, by itself, may be more than enough to carry us through this life.
Frederick Buechner wrote, "To sacrifice something is to make it holy by giving it away for love." 1 May the sacredness of God's love be made real in our lives as we sacrifice and serve together in the holy name of God.
____________
1. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), p. 83.
