““Why this frenzy of
sacrifices?” God’s asking.
“Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices, rams and plump
grain-fed calves? Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of blood from bulls, lambs,
and goats? When you come before me, whoever gave you the idea of acting like
this, Running here and there, doing this and that—all this sheer commotion in the place provided
for worship? “Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious
games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—meetings,
meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for
that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion,
religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next
prayer-performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud
or often you pray, I’ll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you’ve
been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up. Clean
up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings so I don’t have to look
at them any longer. Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help
the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless. “Come.
Sit down. Let’s argue this out.” This is God’s Message: “If your sins are
blood-red, they’ll be snow-white. If they’re red like crimson, they’ll be like
wool. If you’ll willingly obey, you’ll feast like kings. But if you’re willful
and stubborn, you’ll die like dogs.” That’s right. God says so.” --Isaiah 1:11-20 (The Message)
Have you
ever gone through all the right motions, done all the right things, and still
not gotten the results you were hoping for? My guess is this happens to many of
us on a regular basis. Whether it is at work, school, with family, at church or
with God, we do all the things we think to be right and it seems we continue to
come up short. In our relationship with God this is very easy to have happen.
We invest our time in making sure we read our Bible. We make sure to be at
church almost every Sunday. We make sure we do the right things in the worship
service. We might even rearrange our schedules once in a while to do something
that seems like something God would appreciate. We do almost anything hoping
that it will please God, and make God happy with us.
Israel in the days of Isaiah was
very active in fulfilling all the regulations of God. They brought their
sacrifices, observed all the religious holidays and festivals. They were good
church folks. Yet as we read from Isaiah 1, God does not seem very pleased with
them. They are doing all the right things but there seems to be a problem. The
issue restated later in Isaiah a little differently, “The Lord says, “These people draw near with their mouths and honor me
with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is
a human commandment learned by rote.” (Isaiah 29:13) In his ministry Jesus
would quote this passage when referring to the Pharisees, the religious leaders
of his day. The issue is the people were doing all the external things of
worshiping God without any impact on their hearts.
This has made me wonder how God
views worship as it takes places in churches today. Do we put on all the
trappings of the show without having our hearts available to God? Do we simply
put on a good show hoping that it will please God? The troubling words of
Isaiah 1 should haunt us in appropriate ways. God does not desire a good show
on Sunday morning where we make sure all the pieces are perfectly in place. God
desires that our hearts would be available and stirred to the point where we
live as people who have been infected by the grace and love of God. That we
would be known as followers of Jesus because we work for justice, help the
down-and-out, stand up for the homeless and go to bat for the defenseless. With
all respect to Altar Guilds everywhere, I am not sure the importance is on
whether the right colored paraments are presented.
It
seems that our relationship with God is not seen best in the ceremony and
celebration, the observance of the festivals and Holy Days. To understand the
relationship someone has with God through Jesus Christ the best place to look
is their heart, and the ways in which a person lives their life. Do we seek justice,
love mercy and walk humbly with our God as Micah calls us to, or do we simply
want to make sure we have a good show?
