agri.church

As we near the end of this series on justice I want to invite you to immerse yourself in some of the passages that have spurred us on the last few weeks.

Today, it’s Isaiah 58. I want to read just the first five verses (we’ll save the rest for tomorrow). At the beginning of this chapter, God commands the prophet to turn up the volume because the people of Israel need to be woken up. Even though their religious activity was alive and well they had managed to spark God’s anger. Why? Let’s let the text speak for itself:

1 “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast. Shout aloud! Don’t be timid. Tell my people Israel of their sins! 2 Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about me. They act like a righteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God. They ask me to take action on their behalf, pretending they want to be near me. 3 ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say. ‘Why aren’t you impressed? We have been very hard on ourselves, and you don’t even notice it!’ “I will tell you why!” I respond. “It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves. Even while you fast, you keep oppressing your workers. 4 What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling? This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me. 5 You humble yourselves by going through the motions of penance, bowing your heads like reeds bending in the wind. You dress in burlap and cover yourselves with ashes. Is this what you call fasting? Do you really think this will please the Lord?

What’s so amazing to me is how clueless the people of Israel seem to be. “Us?” they ask. “Can’t be. We’re religious. We’re doing what God wants.” But then there is that haunting question at the end of verse five: “Do you really think this will please the Lord?”

I wonder: how often have I been clueless? How often have I spent my time pursuing religion — thinking that it would please God? How often have I made sure I could check off some Christian “to-do” list believing that it was what mattered most? How often have I gotten it all wrong - thinking that I had it all right?

“Do you really think this will please the Lord?” I’m going to carry this hard question around with me today and let it be my companion; because I don’t want to fool myself anymore. I want to see things as they really are. How about you?