Okay, so maybe Isaiah does not have the most optimistic opening to his book in the Bible. He is a bit on the deary side. He is a bit like some person giving a gloom and doom sermon on the street that causes you to avert your eyes, study the sidewalk and pick up the pace to get past. Somewhere around verse 6 with talk of sores that won't heal maybe you started wondering, why? And then the whole city goes up in flames and you wonder about my sanity in wanting to comment about this book.
I will be honest that the first time I read this Isaiah did not seem like the sort of warm, cozy slipper-like faith I often yearn for to comfort me in these difficult times. Yet, I think that is the point. Isaiah says that something is broken in our relationship with God. We don't like to hear that, but I know there is truth in that sentence. I cannot pretend that just because I post this blog or say a quick prayer or go to church on Sunday that I have somehow pacified God. Isaiah takes our worship to task when we go through the motions. And let's face it, there are moments when we have mumble our way through the call to worship or start thinking of what to have for lunch during the silent prayer or glanced down at our watch to see how long the sermon is or if we are going to make it home by kickoff.
Worship is not the only place we nurture our relationship with God. In fact, Isaiah says in verses 16-17 that it is our actions toward the least, lowly, and lost in this world that will truly be a place where we can reconcile with God. (By the way, in Luke where Jesus is constantly reaching out to the least, lowly and lost in this world, Isaiah is one place where perhaps he got idea. Perhaps that is why Jesus reads from Isaiah in his first sermon). At the close of worship, I often encourage people to see 11 am on Sunday not as the end of the worship event but as the beginning of our worship in the world. Again, that is what Isaiah is inviting us into. What we say to our co-worker's sarcastic comment about our new shirt or how we treat the clerk when we return that sweater we got from Christmas, what if that is every bit as sacred as what we do on Sunday morning? What if worship becomes not a place where we dump all those regrets and feel guilty so we can go out and keep repeating the same miscues and missteps, but a place where we are reminded this one hour is how every hour should be?
That is why, in spite of Isaiah's perhaps too honest and in-our-face assessment of our human situation in the opening verses, I still appreciate this book of the Bible. I don't want worship to be an escape. Worship can be a safe haven sure but with an awareness of the storms of life. I want worship to be the place where we as the people of God "settle the matter" (vs. 18). Actually, I prefer the NRSV where God says, "come, let us argue this out." Maybe we think arguing does not have a place in church, certainly not in worship. But arguing does not need to be shouting or trying to win points. Arguing can mean being engaged and invested in our relationship. That is what God invites us into: an engaged relationship that makes all the difference. That is what worship can be in the best sense: an engaged way to nurture that relationship.
So maybe there is more to Isaiah than sores and fire and references to blood, maybe there is something that can help us see the traces of God's grace in our lives that makes worship part of our life every day.
Happy 2013 and God's blessings!
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