Isaiah 58:1-12
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
Prophets, and there have been a lot of them throughout the history of God’s people, these men and women have often spoken with a threatening tone, offering God’s word of warning to disobedient nations. Isaiah, while he often spoke of the wonders of the day of the coming of the Messiah, he did not as a prophet shy away from expressing God’s warnings in harsh terms. Jesus also, while thought of mostly because of his loving and forgiving message, and known as the provider of healings and feedings, at times spoke as a prophet and he was not afraid to proclaim God’s word of warning and the need to obey the Law, even knowing that God will forgive the sins of the people through his sacrifice.
Thinking of Isaiah words, as found in today’s reading, I can’t help but to think of the impeachment hearings that just took place in Congress, the expansive lying and the petty behavior of our leaders, along with the avoidance of justice and then there is also our election process, the debates with all the political rhetoric including all kinds of deception and half-truths which we heard also in the State of the Union Address and the responses of the audience. We as the church and as individuals pray for our Nation, as we should, but about our nation, it seems that we can plug in the words of Isaiah with only a few minor changes, “Yet day after day (we) seek (the Lord) and delight to know (the Lord’s ways), as if (we) were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of (our) God; we ask of “the Lord” righteous judgments”. Righteous judgments! We say that we want righteous judgments; we say that we want the truth; but, do we? Can we handle true justice? We may not like it; we say, as a people of the United States that we want righteousness and justice and the truth, but we accept from the leaders of our government, as though it were the truth, political rhetoric, outright lies and unjust practices. We forgive or to be more accurate, we ignore the lies (those that we can identify) that are spoken by our leaders and we ignore and accept the unrealistic and grand statements of our politicians as simply a part of the political process.
I’m a realist, I understand that we do not live in a Christian nation, even our founders made this clear, but living in a nation such as ours that accepts religious freedom, you would think, you would hope that it would embrace, at least for the most part, honesty and truth and justice. It might not be as our Christian faith might want it; the truth is it would be unrealistic for us to expect our government to fully agree with our Christian understanding of righteousness, justice, forgiveness and love, but it could be better.
I’m not Isaiah, I’m not called to prophecy to our nation; if God were calling me today to be a prophet of the Lord and speak to this our nation, I would be forced to speak with bold words of condemnation and a warning of God’s well-deserved judgment (punishment). In all honesty, I pray that a voice of power and renown will so prophecy, but I’m not that voice; I’ve not been called to speak to our nation as a prophet, but rather to speak to you. And to speak to you is a very different thing; you are not the ones who are currently leading our country in such flawed and unjust ways. But you (we) are a part of the process; to you, I have been called to encourage you to seek the highest of standards from our government leaders, to look beyond the political rhetoric, for the truth, to seek leaders who will try to be righteous and just, leaders who will share justice with the weakest of the weak as well as the richest of the rich. And hopefully, to seek in our country to “loose the bonds of injustice” and to free the oppressed (as spoken by Isaiah).
Our hands are not clean in all of this; the wrong that takes place is not all the fault of our elected and appointed government officials; the truth is the best of governments cannot care for all of the people. We as individuals, as Christians have our own responsibilities; we are called upon to share our bread with the hungry (we do this as we support PACS), to care for the homeless (we make meals for St. Mary’s Shelter and support the Good Samaritan Shelter), and to clothe those who are insufficiently dressed (we just gathered some blankets and clothing for the homeless in Kensington). Our responsibility as Christians is to set the example for our political leaders, our neighbors and the world; Christianity grew to be as influential as it is, because of the example Christians have set and also because of the message of love (the love of Jesus) that we share with our neighbors.
One more thing, we do not, do all of this, because it is the righteous thing to do and we do not do this to put ourselves in good stead with the Lord as though we can earn God’s love; it is certainly good to be righteous, but we do all of this because Jesus, who died for the forgiveness of our sins, already loves us, wants each of us to love God and love and care for each other and so by such love, follow the Law of God. Even Isaiah who surely expected the punishment of the Lord, because of the evil that Israel was doing as a nation and as individuals of the nation, understood that acting according to the will of God was its own reward, for you see, by following God’s will, Isaiah understood that he would see the love of God in his life and the lives of others; in Isaiah’s words, “you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”
Here in this place, there are springs of living water flowing in you and throughout this wonderful congregation, (and this has nothing to do with being in Chester Springs) some of these springs engulf us with this living water, sharing with us the Spirit’s wisdom and the Lord’s love. Sadly many of us, cap off these wonderful springs of living water, that could easily, if we let them, run out from us to others, offering Jesus’ love and forgiveness and the wisdom of the Lord, maybe even truths that our world and nation do not seem to want to hear; we cap off these springs of living water, because we are afraid of how others may receive its truths and love and us. and so, we do not let these living waters flow freely out into the world. Uncap your springs of living water, let these streams of water guide you into making wise and loving choices in your communities, at your work places and at your polling places; let the words of the Spirit’s wisdom and the expression of the Lord’s love that flow from these springs be made known to our neighbors but also to our sitting leaders, and to the running candidates and to all those who are and who want to be in authority. Pray for our leaders; pray that they will serve all people well; pray for your friends and those you disagree with.