8TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, AUGUST 7, 2022
Proper 14C: Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50: 1-8, 23-24; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-4O
We’re living in difficult times right now, and one particularly difficult part of it all is that religion seems to be on the side of evil and oppression as much as on the side of generosity and love. It’s a worldwide phenomenon and crosses all religions. It shows up, for example, in the Russian Orthodox Church’s backing of Putin’s attempt to take over Ukraine, in the campaign by right wing Christians to halt access to abortion in our own country, in the oppressive Taliban rule in Afghanistan (despite their promises not to revert to that), in Indian nationalists’ use of Hinduism to oppress other religions, even in Buddhist monks backing the government of Myanmar.
Religion is our age-old human way of coming into touch with what is of ultimate value. We need it. Where else do we talk about these things? Where else do we find the words to talk about them? But religion is also vulnerable to many kinds of misuse. Perhaps the most common is the use of it to make much of oneself. By taking up a strict formula of religious doctrine or practice, I can convince myself that I must be a good person—and that the less disciplined must be inferior. That, in turn, opens religion to being used as a disguise, something to hide all kinds of ill-doing. We see it, for example, in the long and tortuous process of getting churches to confront their history of covering up abuse by church leaders.
It’s this kind of thing that the young prophet Isaiah was attacking in our reading today. He stood up to prophesy in Jerusalem during a great sacrificial ritual. God had given him an oracle. Perhaps he’d rather not utter it, but he has very little choice:
Hear the word of the Lord,
you rulers of Sodom!
Listen to the teaching of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!
Sodom and Gomorrah, as you remember, were destroyed because they treated strangers with brutality. There was nothing left of those cities but uninhabited ruins. And here ‘ss Isaiah, speaking at a touchy moment when the Kingdom of Judah was itself seriously threatened and calling the assembled worshippers “rulers of Sodom” and “people of Gomorrah!”
And he goes on to tell them that God finds all their sacrifices nothing but an insult:
Trample my courts no more;
bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me.
Why? Because “your hands are full of blood.” A little further on in this oracle, Isaiah goes on to say:
Your princes . . . are companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow’s cause does not come before them.
The Judahites of Isaiah’s day assumed that the forms of religion were enough to keep God happy. Like our own Supreme Court in recent weeks, they forgot that what God truly loves is justice and mercy and generosity. Given Isaiah’s savage attack on his audience, one wonders how he survived to prophesy again!
It can feel, these days, as if false religion is taking control. And it’s an interesting moment to hear Jesus saying to to us, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Hmm. Doesn’t seem to be happening very fast does it? No. And things didn’t go too smoothly for Jesus, either, did they? Like Isaiah, he must have been fully aware what his prophetic message would bring down on his head. But then there’d be no point in saying “Do not be afraid,” would there, unless there are indeed things to fear? And, amazingly enough, it helps. Faithful people throughout the ages have been finding that they can give up being afraid without ging into denial about the dangers.
Jesus isn’t telling us to shut our eyes and pretend everything is okay. Jesus is telling us to broaden our scope of vision. One way we do that is to look around us and see that we have riches to enjoy and to share. Those riches can be found in a life freed from narrow selfishness. He tells us to have a horizon broader than just our individual well-being, a horizon that includes the security and well-being of the whole human community and the world around us. And this strengthens us for the journey we undertake with Jesus and the saints of all ages.
A perfect world almost certainly lies beyond the confines of our present life. But we can experience something of it in the life of the community of love. Jesus tells a parable about the master returning from a wedding celebration and doing something absolutely unexpected, unimaginable even. He changes into working clothes (that’s what that strange bit about “fastening his belt” actually indicates)—changes into working clothes and serves dinner to the servants, returning the faithfulness they have shown him. The giving life turns out to be a receiving life as well, because the gift of love helps create a community of love.
Still, we find ourselves in a period of reaction against the religion of love and generosity right now. The vision of a world of justice and freedom and peace seems very threatening to people who are committed to a religion of self-assurance, self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness—all the many forms of spiritual egotism. But Jesus tells us that, in the great scheme of things, love will win out. It won’t be in a time frame that we can always appreciate. God, after all, has given us human beings a very wide measure of freedom. God doesn’t micro-manage this world. And the new world we’re looking for and helping God create repeatedly gets tripped up and sent sprawling. But it doesn’t die.
There is a long history of faithful people laboring to bring the beloved community into being and sustain it. Only think of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the epoch-making things he and his colleagues achieved. As we share Jesus’ vision of a world made new by love of God and neighbor, we will find strength to move forward. As our reading from Hebrews this morning reminded us, the saints who came before were sustained by trust that the good news of God’s love will eventually prevail. They did not simply accept the world as they found it; they “lived in tents,” as Hebrews puts it. “They desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.” God rejects the prayers of the unjust. But claims all who are faithful to the rule of love as true worshippers.
None of this makes our present age, with all its greed, recrimination, ‘fake news,’ self-righteousness, arrogance, vindictiveness and violence any easier. But it affirms that the love God, of neighbor, of one another, of the planet where we live is not wasted. Without people who keep this faith, our world would be bereft indeed. We are here to continue their line and to be a gift to the future.