How do we handle a crisis? And I do not mean practically for there are plenty of practical models available, but personally, how do we as a church and as Christians address a crisis moment?
When something that we label as a crisis takes place there is a common response that helps ease the suffering—but only at a surface level.
The popular justification that people often use to explain trauma or crisis away is: “well, at least that’s not happening here.” Now this may not be vocalized, but we can see the internal fruits if we are discerning.
We are troubled by what we see on the news, or read about on social media, but at some point, but we can turn those outlets off. And by turning them off, the affirmation happens: This is not happening here.
Sadly, that is how many people solve the hard problems of our world, they say that it is someone else’s problem and thereby ridding themselves of the burden. Until one of those events happens here, with us.
Sadly, that choice of “at least it isn’t here” does not solve anything but defers the action, and the need to care and support, to a later date.
This attitude of deference is how the people who heard Isaiah’s message responded when the conviction from chapter 1 came into their house—they pointed to a place where it was worse and, in their case, they said, “hey at least we are not Sodom or Gomorrah.”
But in the text today, that justification is taken away by God. For like Sodom and Gomorrah, who suffered because sin was very present with them, a sin they would not address or confess, sin and suffering are also in our community. Our challenge as we come to text such as this is to allow the sting of a text like this land with us and wonder together if what God said back then, applies to us, right now also?
And in the case of this text, the sting from the text causes us to ask: is our worship helping us grow closer to God, or is our worship driving us away from God and away from faithfulness in our calling?
Move 1- The audience
Isaiah’s [audience] are people held in the present moment who have used Sodom and Gomorrah as a collective consolation [and that’s a strange choice isn’t it].
Going back earlier in Isaiah, they say we have been battered (Isaiah 1:5-6) but we are not obliterated. Our earth has been scorched (Isaiah 1:7), but life prosperity and blessing still it takes root here. We are not as bad as those folks back then.
When God brought judgment on those two ancient cities, none of them survived. But some of us are still standing, so at least we are not like them because, again, none of them survived (Isaiah 1:9). It is a problem over there not here. Back then. The trauma is someone else’s issue, with that person, or that family, or in that church and community. . . it’s not ours and so we do not have to deal with it or confront it.
But I wonder if God makes the same distinction and/or justification as we do when poor choices are made by the Church? When we come into worship, and we are asked by God to be faithful, does that same rationale hold us?
While the people hearing the message of Isaiah 1 were ‘grading on a scale,’ I wonder if God does the same thing when poor choices and sinful actions happen?
The prophet cuts through the self-rationalization that has failed to reckon with the seriousness of Judah and Jerusalem’s lack of faithfulness. Isaiah counters their self-deceptive logic with an unexpected statement: you can stop consoling yourselves by comparing yourself to others. For in verse 10 he tells them straight out: You are Sodom. You are Gomorrah. God makes no distinction when sin is committed.
And by identifying all the people as guilty, everyone who finds this passage later, everyone who suffers from their own crisis, and remembers the story of this passage, we are all equally as guilty of sinning in God’s eyes. We all fall short.
We are all in this together. . . And we all are guilty, together. It’s not the problem of the scriptures only, it’s not their problem, it is ours.
And so, we must ask, guilty of what? What is the sin that the hearer of Isaiah is guilty of? What is God so upset about here?
Move 2- The sin
Last week I said that Hosea lists out 44 sins for us to consider. They are varied and they are diverse. Well, Isaiah is bit clearer in his wording. The sin (or sins) of this passage revolves around the same central idea or theme. And this theme informs much of what we do, and do not do, moving forward as the church. It comes to a head in verse 15. It is all about how we come before God and worship.
Hear the words again and notice the dichotomy that illustrates the sin of this passage as we come before God:
“When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.”
Let’s pick this verse apart and see why what God is accusing the church of is so painful.
We start with ’Stretching out the hands’. . . This is an act of worship that God states that the people are practicing. And it is a good thing or practice to engage it. The children of Israel have been taught it as early as their time with Moses and Aaron to stretch out their hands to God in worship.
Lifting holy hands. Blessing as in a benediction at the conclusion of a time of worship. God says, ‘when you do this, when you engage in worshipful acts such as these, I am not watching. I am not participating with you.’
Because as we follow Isaiah’s words in 15, when you lift your hands in worship, when you pray, when you bless, when you do acts of Christian service, they are full of blood.
Blood in this verse carries with it the sense of animal sacrifice. It is not just blood like you get when you skin you knee or get a bloody nose. This is blood that is spilled for a sacrifice that is not pleasing to God.
We get covered in this blood as well. This is not just something accidentally done either. Imagine dunking your hands in red paint. . .
When I read this phrase, I am imaging standing before God, hands lifted in worship, in prayer, in intercession, and ‘the blood,’ the sin, that which separates us from God, dripping off them onto the ground and the person attempting to worship God does not realize how sinful they are acting or living daily. . . To go back to the beginning, it’s not your problem, its theirs. But that is false isn’t it. This is not pleasing to God.
This is a visceral image for us. With this image, God is saying that the acts of our faith, are drenched in that which does not please God, and so our worship is ineffective. In these moments it is not life changing. It is not transformational.
And because we are not changed as we worship God, because we are not regularly re-examining our lives before God, we miss the mark at becoming the Christians God calls us to be. And so, our service, our care, our stewardship, it is all done from false motivations and selfish places not a God-place.
That is the sin that is behind that drives this passage.
Move 3- hope
Yet in spite of our worship being practiced from false motivations and in spite of being accused of being just like Sodom and Gomorrah, God is willing to reunify us to himself. If, as verse 19 the prophet tells, we are willing and if we are obedient to the Lord’s call then God will return to us.
While God is under no requirement to sit with us and ‘reason it out’ with us as verse 18 states so well, God wants to be with us in this way.
And this overall passage is an invitation to take the trauma and stressors of life and bring them to the Lord in the context of worship. True worship. Faithful worship. Worship grounded and held in the person of God.
The choice is ours to come back to God and find healing, wholeness, grounding, and restoration. The choice is ours to take the trauma, stress, and pain that we see each day and stop applying it cynically to the people around us, but bring it home to God, into this place, and let God change our worship, our mindset, and wash us again.
We might miss the mark often. But in worship as we remember the faithfulness of God, the Lord restores us.
Conclusion
Easier said than done though. For as soon as we think we have a handle on any of this, we click off the feed, the tv, or whatever and we the problem someone else’s again.
But I wonder if this passage can remind us to worship the Lord properly again??
For all miss the mark. We all forget the transformational power of being with God. So the next time that life gets out in front of you, and you are tempted to think that the problems of this life are someone else’s take it to the Lord in true, authentic worship and see what the Lord has to say in that space. . .
Dm
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