Mercy in practice within the Church

Sermon for the week of Trinity 4

Isaiah 58:6-12

When you read the Old Testament, you always have to keep certain basic things in mind, like, Who is speaking (or writing)? To whom is he speaking, and in what context? When you read the prophets, like Isaiah, the speaker is almost always the prophet, who is almost always speaking for God, who is almost always speaking directly to the people of Israel. And what’s important to remember about the people of Israel? Well, you have to remember that they were all blood relatives of one another, all descended from Israel (or Jacob). They were both an earthly nation, with an earthly government and an earthly society, and they were a religious people, all living under and governed by the covenant God had made with them at Mt. Sinai, which told them, not only how they were to worship God, but also how they were supposed to live together and treat one another in their godly society, promising great earthly rewards if they followed God’s covenant. The society of Israel and the Church of Israel were one and the same thing. All Israelites were blood relatives of one another, all fellow citizens, all fellow church members, all living under the covenant or “testament” of Mt. Sinai. You’d think that would result in a beautiful, loving, peaceful, family-oriented society, wouldn’t you? But it didn’t.

The next thing that’s helpful to keep in mind when you read the Old Testament is when the prophet is speaking, at what state of Israel’s development as a church-nation. Almost all the prophets prophesied to Israel after King Solomon, during the years of the divided kingdom, roughly four hundred years of steady decline, leading up to the Babylonian captivity in the late 500’s BC. And then, of course, there were a few prophets who wrote during the exile and after the exile was over. Why is that important to remember? Because people today like to just open up a Bible, read some verses, and pretend that God is speaking directly to them, in their context, which is not true, and which will lead to all sorts of strange interpretations.

Well, when is Isaiah writing? Hopefully you remember this, since we took a whole year to study chapters 40-66. Isaiah is writing in about 700 BC, during the latter part of the divided kingdom, after the nation, both north and south, had already largely abandoned their God, although they kept all the trappings of the Jewish religion so they could still claim to be religious people. And they had already proven that they were incapable of living together in love, even though they were all blood-related, fellow church members, and living under the covenant of Sinai. One of Isaiah’s main tasks was to announce to that stubborn, mostly merciless people that God was preparing to punish them for their persistent wickedness by bringing foreigners in to destroy Jerusalem and to take them all captive. Meanwhile, the people kept on committing injustice, fraud, and violence in their church-society, while pretending that their outward religious observances were all that God should really care about. Like fasting. “Why is God so upset with us? We fast for Him, don’t we?”

That’s the context in which Isaiah writes the words you heard a little while ago, where God says to Israel: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? The outward religious observance of fasting was of no interest to God whatsoever, without the inner devotion toward God and mercy toward their neighbors that were supposed to go with it—inner devotion and mercy that would have led the Israelites to stop acting wickedly toward one another; to stop placing “yokes,” or unjust burdens on their fellow citizens; to stop oppressing the innocent or the weak, just because they could; and to defend their neighbors—their fellow church members—from “yokes” placed upon them by others.

The Lord goes on: Is not the fast that I have chosen to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Hiding themselves from their own flesh, that is, when they saw their own flesh and blood fellow citizens and church members suffering, instead of offering them whatever help they could, they hid. Like pretending you’re not home when the doorbell rings and you know it’s someone you don’t want to see. That’s how they behaved, when they saw their fellow citizens and church members literally going hungry, having lost their last shred of clothing, because, remember, there was no welfare, there was no WIC, no safety net. If your crops failed, if your house burned down, if the man of the house became seriously injured or ill, your family became destitute, and often, you died—except for the mercy that was supposed to be shown by your own flesh and blood, by your relatives, who were also your fellow church members in Israel. That’s what God wanted! That’s what God commanded, and what Israel had agreed to at Mt. Sinai! In fact, that’s what God expected from those who had been on the receiving end of His own great mercy. But the Israelites had lost their faith, and with it, the genuine care and compassion that believers have for one another.

Then (if you do these things) shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ Again, God promised great blessings to Israel, if they would only keep His covenant, which included having a heart of mercy toward one another and showing compassion, and which didn’t include injustice, oppression, and wickedness. It wasn’t just outward good deeds that would bring about their healing, though. It was the inner repentance that would result in those outward good deeds. God made great promises of deliverance to Israel, and glory for Israel, if only they would repent and amend their sinful ways.

If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted. Again, the yoke was the symbol of the unjust oppression of the innocent and the weak. The pointing of the finger, along with the speaking wickedness, symbolized suspicion and false accusations against one another. And isn’t that a beautiful picture, pouring yourself out for the hungry, for your fellow church member, living, not for selfish ambition, but for your brother or sister in God’s kingdom?

Then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. Remember, I said it was important to know the context of the prophet’s writing? This is Isaiah 58. Just two chapters later, in Isaiah 60, we hear about a light rising out of the darkness of Israel. But it wouldn’t be Israel’s own light. It wouldn’t be Israel’s goodness or mercy that would shine, because Israel would never become the just and merciful people that God called them to be. They wouldn’t lay aside their wickedness. And so their light would never rise in the darkness. But God’s light would, with the coming of the Messiah. This is what God says in Isaiah 60: Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD is dawning upon you. Look, darkness covers the earth, and deep darkness covers the peoples, but the LORD will dawn upon you, and his glory will be seen over you. Nations will walk to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. That’s a Messianic prophecy. The Christ would come to Israel, and with Him, the glory of God would shine on the nation, and from the nation to the rest of the nations. And the light of Christ would bring people from all nations out of the darkness of unbelief, and of sin, and wickedness, and mercilessness. The Gospel of forgiveness through Christ would work repentance and faith in people from every nation, and those people, whom we call believers, or Christians, would finally begin to reflect the mercy of God among one another—still imperfectly in this life, but perfectly in the next.

So, you see, this text from Isaiah isn’t primarily about giving a handout to the stranger at the intersection. And it certainly isn’t about creating a righteous nation for your children or grandchildren to live in. It’s about how God’s Old Testament people failed to become the merciful people they were called to be. It’s about the need for the Christ to come, to pay for our sins, to call people into His kingdom, and to craft those people, those Christians, into the merciful people He is seeking. That is, and must be, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit among us all, and within each one of you. Let this little church be known, more and more, for mercy, for how mercy is practiced among our own members toward one another. And then watch for those opportunities that God places before you, from day to day, to show mercy and to act justly toward those on the outside, too. Because when mercy is practiced within the Church of God, the people of God are helped, the people of the world are given a true witness to the Gospel, and, above all, God’s name is glorified. Amen.