DOES ISAIAH SPEAK THE TRUTH

Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)
Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my
ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God….
— Isaiah 58:2

Christians assume that this may have been the passage that
Jesus read in the synagogue as recorded in Luke 4:18-19. If so, one
can see why it caused anger among his listeners. Here were the
people who had returned from exile to their homeland. Daily they
engaged in acts of worship. “Yet day after day they seek me and
delight to know my way….” But they remain a troubled society far
from the ideal community that they dreamed of having.

As a nation, we could substitute the United States, and the words of Isaiah would challenge any illusion of comfort for us as a people. There
are many churches that seem to prosper, and people flock to courses
on spiritual disciplines and discipleship. Yet God seems strangely
distant from our national life. “Why do we fast but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not take notice?” Did Israel
also have such a private faith that it was separated from social responsibility?

“Look, you serve your own interests on your fast day
and oppress all your workers. Look you fast only to quarrel and to
fight and to strike with a wicked fist.” Do not our church quarrels
reveal a missing dimension to the practice of our faith? “Is not this
the fast I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice … to let the oppressed
go free … Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and
bring the homeless poor into your house…?” There is a frightening
parallel between what Isaiah saw in his society and the emptiness
we find in our society. All of the exciting worship experiences, the
well-developed educational programs, and the profound spiritual
retreats that we can offer will be empty unless they result in our
responding to the iniquities of our society. “… If you offer your
food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your
light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”

As Jesus discovered, it is not a truth that many people want to
hear, but it is critical for our spiritual health.

Water from the Well, A Lectionary Devotional for Cycle A by Stephen McCutchan