What Is It That God Asks?

Part one of three blogs.

All right! Lets see if I can recreate the thoughts had yesterday that I deleted.  I began with, the issues presented in Luke 13:10-17, where Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. It was the sabbath.  When he noticed a crippled woman and he healed her.  The religious leaders were indignant!  They basically  scolded him for healing on the sabbath.

The whole idea of resting on the sabbath is historic.  And the Jewish people had religiously upheld that tradition for centuries.  It had, like many old traditions, caused great debate and misunderstanding about what people of faith are to do, to think and not to do.

Jesus calls the synagogue leaders “hypocrites.”

This is what led me to a reading in Isaiah 58.  There  Isaiah is spelling out the larger problem of the Hebrew people making up their own rules for following God's will.   Way before Jesus’ arrived on the scene.  

1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 

Isaiah is announcing the people’s rebellion.  Isaiah sees two issue.  One is that they want to be close to God.  However, they serve their own interests first.  They quarreled and fought each other using “wicked fists.”  They put their own want, needs and idea first.  

However, God was asking for justice, and an end to oppression.  

God was asking them to share their bread with the hungry.  
     To share their homes with the homeless.  
         To share their clothing with those who had none.     

In other words, God was requesting that these people to get out of their navel-centered world; and begin to do what the God, from the very beginning, had asked of them.  That is to repair the breach, the separation, the gap between God and themselves. By restoring  safety to their streets!  To refrain from trampling God’s request sabbath call to rest.  And stop ignoring their neighbor’s needs. 

When you do these things, Isaiah say, then!  

Then, you will be able to take the delight in the Lord, you grave.

Then, your parched places will be satisfied.

Then, the Lord will make your bones strong. 

Then, you will be like a well watered garden whose waters never fail.

Then, your ruined lives will be restored.

Then, you shall raise up the foundations for many generations. 

Then, the Lord will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; and I the Lord will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob.

Isaiah ends this list with:  “For the mouth of the Lord has spoken!”

As I sat writing, all of those “thens” yesterday, I began to think about a time when I had witnessed God’s will being accomplished like that.  Two thought came to my mind.  One I will briefly tell you about today.  And the other will come in the second blog on this subject.

I first thought of a trip, some of us took, to help clean-up after Hurricane Katrina.  People throughout the area were helping their sisters and brothers with not only clean-up; but with a variety of  needs.  Insurance resolution, medical needs, federal intervention etc..  However, the most amazing thing, for me, was the two giant tents that stood on one area of the town.  One tent was filled with everything anyone would need.  Like a Big-Box store.  All for free!  All donated by others, or large companies.  In that tent, my job was to sit and listen to peoples emotions, feelings and memories.  

In the other tent was, what could be called, a mess tent.  Thousands of person ate three square meals a day for free.  The food was all donated, the help was all volunteers.  No money crossed hands!  Only love, kindness and smiling faces willing to serve their neighbors together.  

It was a wonderful display of people doing what God asks:  Taking care of the needs of a neighbor.  Doing justice, offering kindness and humbly serving others.

To be continues!

1 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 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; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. 3 "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. 4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10 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. 11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. 12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. 13 If you refrain from trampling the sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; 14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.(Isaiah 58)