FIRST LESSON: Isaiah 58:1-12
SECOND LESSON: James 2: 14-19
February 12, 2017
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
“The Proof In the Pudding”
Sermon ©Lisa C. Farrell
The proverb “the proof is in the pudding” actually goes back to the 14th
century! Who knew? Of course the meaning of the word “pudding” has
changed. Originally it meant all that stuff that is stuffed into a sausage. Some
of it could be pretty suspect. It’s like scrapple or haggis. What are we really
eating? Do we even want to know? This makes a little more sense than our idea
of pudding, but the message is still the same. If you want to know what the
ingredients are, you have to taste it. When it comes to our Christian life, words
are not enough. It’s actions that demonstrate what we’re really made of.
It’s always much trickier identifying the historical context of the Old
Testament than it is for the New Testament because of the passage of time, but
in this case, Isaiah 58 probably refers to the practice of fasting that followed
the Babylonian exile and return of the people to the land of Israel. Israel fasted
on the fifth and seventh months for seventy years following the destruction of
Jerusalem. This twice a year fast commemorated the fact that they had lost
their home and their political sovereignty. They fasted and prayed, both to
thank God for their return and to pray for further help to become independent
again. When political independence didn’t come and problems persisted, they
demanded to know of God why God hadn’t done God’s part. In the minds of the
people it was very much like a contract. We did this, therefore you are obliged
to do that. But the God of Israel was different from all other gods.
What we don’t understand because we are operating under the influence
of 2000 years of Judeo-Christian heritage is that the God of Israel was the
ONLY God in the ancient world of the Middle East that made ethical demands
of people. The other gods surrounding Israel and throughout what later became
the Roman Empire didn’t care what people did ethically and morally. I feel like I
need to repeat this. They didn’t care. What mattered to the gods was that
their rituals were performed beautifully and with word-perfect accuracy. One
word out of place, and you had to start all over again. What mattered was the
cost of the sacrifice. The bigger and more perfect the better. It was literally a
quid pro quo. I give you this, so you give me that. These gods were not what we
would consider moral beings. Molech was not someone you invited to dinner.
The Baals did what they wanted. The Greco-Roman pantheon would make a
perfect cast for a daytime soap opera. They didn’t care if you slept around,
murdered your rivals, and cheated your business partners. They certainly
didn’t care about how the poor were treated. Religion was purely external. If
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you wanted morality—you went to the philosophers—you were not going to get
it from the gods. And even with philosophy, social justice often took a back
seat.
It’s hard for us to grasp this kind of religious atmosphere, but it’s why
the people so often assumed that as long as they performed their religious rites
properly, everything else would be okay. But not with this God. This God was
concerned about things no other god was. Israel was complaining that God had
deprived them of justice and God responded by demanding that Israel stop
depriving those around them of justice.
The people fasted. They performed an external religious act. But at the
same time they were “being religious” they treated those around them
abysmally. They exploited their workers. They quarreled. They fought—
sometimes physically. This, says the God of Israel, is not the kind of fast I
require. The fasting God asks of us is to—
• Loose the chains of injustice
• Untie the cords of the yoke
• Set the oppressed free
• Share our food with the hungry
• Provide the poor wanderer with shelter
• Clothe the naked, and
• Not turn away from our own family members when they are in need
This is not just one action. This is a radical change in lifestyle and attitude.
Doing these things changes society itself. This type of “fast” requires rigorous
self-honesty, justice, compassion and generosity in everything we do. It means
letting go of our sense of entitlement, and opening our eyes, hearts and minds
to the needs of the world from the greatest to the smallest, from the
international realm to our own households.
The specific evils being cited by Isaiah are framed in poetic language that
sounds general to us but was actually very specific. A “yoke” meant a heavy
burden of taxation, often imposed by a conquering nation but sometimes by
one’s own leaders. “Chains of injustice” implies forced labor. To be “oppressed”
is to be economically and socially disadvantaged. It’s to be trapped in poverty.
The hungry and the homeless clothed in rags were a part of life. People stepped
over them in the street. In many places today we do the same thing. But even if
we have tidied up our city streets and done our best to hide our social
problems, that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And then, Isaiah mentions the
“poor wanderers,” otherwise known as refugees. There have been refugees in
every time and place.
It is very unfortunate that compassion today has been politicized. To do
what God requires of us in terms of social justice is neither a Democratic nor a
Republican agenda. It is God’s agenda. And God’s agenda is pretty radical. It
makes us very uncomfortable. We would much prefer to remain in ignorance.
When we can’t face it anymore, we switch the TV off. Even in our own nation
where we are less helpless often we would much rather blame the poor for
being poor, than to do anything to help alleviate the problem. It is easier to
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criminalize our inner city youth, than it is to provide mentoring, job training
and employment.
Of course many of these issues are overwhelming for us. We’re not in a
decision making position. We don’t have the authority to enact the changes
needed. The suffering is immense; the crisis is beyond us. Apart from feeling
sad and guilty, what can we do?
If we think of our lives as a series of ever expanding rings, what God asks
of us begins at home with our own families. In how we treat those nearest and
dearest to us, we demonstrate our faith. Am I selfish? Am I impatient? Do I let
anger get the best of me? Are there times when I am so frustrated with a family
member that I refuse to help them? Do I turn my back on my spouse, my
parents, my siblings, and my children, or do I share what I have with them?
The next ring is our family of faith, the body of Christ. James wrote to
those who, like the ancient Israelites before them, had disconnected faith from
action. He said, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to
have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or
a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in
peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs,
what good is it? . . . Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my
faith by my deeds.”
If we are who we say we are, if we have faith in the living God who loves
us, then we will respond accordingly. If someone in the body of Christ has a
need we will do everything we can to help meet that need. And then, once we
have done that, we will proceed to treat others outside of the body of Christ
with the love and compassion of God too, because we are Christ’s ambassadors
to the world.
Every kindness we do, every stranger we advocate for, every word we speak
reflects on our God. And sometimes local action becomes national, and
national becomes international.
In the first century in Roman society infants were often abandoned and
left on garbage heaps, exposed to the elements to die. The rationale for doing
this could be anything from their being born deformed to being born female to
having too many children and not enough money. The “fortunate” children (and
I use that term advisedly) were picked up by slavers and raised to be
prostitutes, or by people who mutilated them so they could be put out on the
street as beggars. Christians quite spontaneously started picking up these
infants to rescue them. It wasn’t thought out. They didn’t form a committee to
discuss it. One day a Christian just saw a child about to die, took that child
home and raised it as part of his or her own family. Before long others in the
church were doing it, even deliberately going out in groups at night to search
for and rescue abandoned infants at the city dump. They took them into their
homes, and ultimately, when overrun with children, they founded the first
orphanages. What started as a single act of mercy that changed the life of one
child became a corporate mission of mercy that changed the lives of millions.
Unfortunately there have also been people throughout history who
proclaimed their faith in Christ, and turned their back on those in need.
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During World War II literally thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi
persecution and certain death were turned back by the State Department on
the grounds that they might be Nazi spies. They were forcibly returned to
Germany. Many of these people later died in the holocaust. Revealed in an
article written in the New York Times in February of 2007 is the fact that Anne
Frank’s father Otto had tried desperately to get the family into the United
States where they had family members willing to vouch for them. Papers
discovered in a warehouse in New Jersey outline his torturous and ultimately
failed attempt to get through the ban instituted by the Roosevelt presidency.
Anne Frank died in Bergen Belsen in 1945 shortly after the death of her
mother and sister. She died because our nation thought she might be a Nazi
spy. Those who made these decisions were church going people who certainly
would claim to have been Christian, but fear and prejudice dictated the terms
of this action, not faith and justice.
To be a Christian is to live according to the ways of Christ. Sometimes
it’s risky. Always it’s costly. Self-indulgence is not listed as one of the fruits of
the Spirit. But as we live our lives transformed by God’s grace we become
vessels of healing and wholeness to a world that is broken. What it takes is to
put Christ first, and self second. When we do that what we are made of
changes. Self-seeking slips away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life changes.
We become part of the solution to the grief and suffering of the world, instead
of being part of the problem. Amen.
Isaiah 58:1-12
1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the
commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
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Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
James 2: 14-19
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith
but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister
is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace;
keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what
good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by
action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and
shudder.
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