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When pastors retire they have a chance to check out some of the Sunday morning religious television before going off to worship, presuming they don't succumb to the Sunday paper. One retired colleague who has the leisure to monitor Sunday morning television says that churchy television fixes mostly on the personal concerns of the viewers. Anxiety, depression, grief - all important and life--threatening matters - make up much of Sunday morning religious television.

In most mainstream churches personal concerns have been central since the ending of World War II. We were first driven to this by the anxieties of World War II and the subsequent Cold War with the Soviet Union and China. War--scarred and weary veterans returned home and just wanted to find some quiet and stable peaceful living. Their search affected our whole culture and we went on the hunt for tranquility. While we cannot blame the veterans, this search for peace and quiet became a national obsession. Before long other events began to shake the foundations of our hoped--for quiet. Along came the Civil Rights Movement, the fiasco of Vietnam, a proposal to unite the four dominant mainstream Protestant churches, the call for the liberation of women, and, to top it off, the assertion of gay and lesbian rights.

Our churches still invested themselves heavily in producing tranquility. It is as if the biblical message is one great Valium tablet, designed to snuff out the anxieties of being alive in the mid--twentieth century. One of the signal works of that era was Rabbi Joshua Leibman's popular little book, Peace Of Mind. If we needed anything in those days, peace of mind was at the top of the list. Then Norman Vincent Peale touched a vital need with his The Power Of Positive Thinking. His was a call to see one's troubles as a chance to overcome our demons while on our way to success and prosperity.

Few, if any, of the larger social and international problems mentioned got much press until a young black Baptist preacher from Alabama began to be heard. Leader of the Montgomery city bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr., focused on the denial of civil rights to American blacks. In the 1963 march on Washington, D.C., King's memorable preaching, "I've Got a Dream," affirmed that religion is not merely finding help for our own personal needs.

King pushed the nation and our religious communities to consider pursuing a dream larger than victory over our personal problems.

I

Biblical religion is aware of our own personal needs before God and one another. We can't move through the book of Psalms without sensing that the individual is important to God. Consider the words of Psalm 23, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me." Life can come to death--dealing moments and we need some larger trust. Take these words from Psalm 40, "I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure." Anyone wrestling with the low moments of life can take heart at such a promise. Tradition says that King David lapsed into Psalm 51 when overcome with guilt and remorse for bedding another man's wife and then killing her husband: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Could we count the number of guilt--laden persons who have found God's mercy in these scriptural words?
Psalm 73 expresses the feelings of many who experience some painful unfairness to life especially in the disturbing truth that righteousness is no guarantee of earthly favor: "For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked." Healing for this restless envy came in leaving the matter to God. It still works for us. When we experience an indifferent universe, the words of Psalm 100 become foundational: "Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." The same need is also wonderfully addressed in Psalm 139, "Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?" The Psalms know all about personal religious struggles.

However, today we are drowning in personal religion to the neglect of social concerns that, which left unattended, will bring us even more suffering. Like a high--powered medication, personal religion needs to be taken only in proper dosages. All good things are corruptible. Even sincere and caring religion can be corruptible unless it is balanced by a larger vision of righteousness. We can become so peaceful and secure that we don't see the sufferings of others as we stay within our own safe little cocoon.

II

Our text is from Isaiah 58. It comes from the time after the Exile when the people were resettling their tiny homeland after many years in Babylon. The problem is their poverty and powerlessness in comparison to the past. A host of formidable projects loom before them - rebuilding the Temple, reestablishing their homes, and working over the fields and vineyards. But there were those who remembered the better times before the exile. They grumbled that the re--built Temple was not as splendid as the old one. Politically--minded critics complained that the nation was nowhere near the national splendor it enjoyed earlier. Others worried about hostile nations surrounding them. In short, they were suffering from an acute attack of anxiety.

The religious leaders prescribed some tired old ritual cures - one of them was fasting. Fasting has been a standard spiritual exercise in most religious traditions. When done in the right spirit, fasting focuses our minds on God and how dependent we are on God. Of course, most of us moderns could benefit from serious fasting for our waistlines are out of control. Obesity is an American crisis effecting our health and well--being. But too many calories was not the problem for the people of Isaiah 58. They hoped their fasting would prompt God to create a time of national and personal prosperity.

Fasting didn't make much difference and some of the people began to question the effectiveness of fasting. Isaiah 58 tells them that they have it all wrong. It says that God isn't interested in fasting that is simply self--denial. This is not the fasting that pleases God. Isaiah, speaking for God, tells the people that the fasting God wants is the "fasting" of justice - caring for the poor, the homeless, and the hungry. After this there might come a time of national and personal contentment. Biblical religion is quite sparse with promises of personal or national prosperity. But after the fasting of justice, they might begin to feel good about themselves and their nation. When we focus on the needs of others, of causes that are larger than our own personal concerns, we sometimes discover a satisfaction. When we involve ourselves with others, we might find personal prosperity, but at that point it really doesn't matter for we have all the riches anyone would want.

III

We have some evidence of this. In Allan Luks and Peggy Payne's book, The Healing Power Of Doing Good, they indicate their scientific research shows that active concern for the good of others is beneficial to our personal health and spirit. Studying hundreds of persons who did volunteer work, they discovered that volunteerism gave them a sense of contentment and well--being. When pressed to explain, Luks and Payne say that scientific studies suggest that active concern for others alters one's brain chemistry and strengthens our immune systems. In short, these persons were happier and healthier. Apparently we humans are wired for altruism - the active concern for others.

We have heard this from some persons who have made radical vocational changes, toward vocations that have a primary focus on people's needs. A candidate for ordained ministry had been a stock broker on Wall Street. He was quite successful. But he soon became disenchanted and unhappy, even with his financial success. Suddenly he decided to leave all this behind - the money, the big house, the fancy car, and the many perks of his job. He took his wife and children, put them into a tiny parsonage, and enrolled in seminary. He told the committee on ordained ministry that he now had a happiness that he had never known before. It seems we are structured to center on the needs of others. When we fail to do this, we are often thrown into boredom, depression, and cynicism. We ought not to conclude that being a stock broker on Wall Street means we can never have the satisfactions that bless us in serving God in the workplace. But we can say that it is more difficult to find this godly contentment when the task is so centered on self--advancement and financial gain.

We might even be forgiven for thinking that this stock broker could have used his creative ability to turn his job into one that really went out to the concerns of others, even though this would be much more difficult. Our young stock broker might accuse the church of not being much help in enabling him to find ways to help people and lessen the appeal of money and promotion. He would be right. Jobs that offer limited means of self--sacrificing ways of helping others do not easily offer us this promise. We could say that the real heroes are those who stay with the worldly jobs, which means most of the jobs in today's world, and try to find its point of ministry.

Yet the general truth holds: helping others can have a beneficial effect on our health and spiritual well--being. Robert Funk takes this line in Honest To Jesus. Funk points out that usually we are told that costly caring will result in future blessings. Jesus' beatitudes seem to illustrate this. Poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, thirst for righteousness, mercifulness, purity of heart, peacemaking, and suffering persecution seem to promise some future payoff. Funk argues that Jesus really meant that these things pay off right now, not in some future moment. He says that most ethical systems are "extrinsic." They pay off later and in the meantime we experience pain, suffering, or a time of waiting for our reward. Funk thinks that for Jesus the pay off is immediate, that Jesus' ethics are "intrinsic." They promise a sense of goodness right now. The disciples experience, in the company of Jesus, a blessedness as they anticipate what would come in full when God would inaugurate the kingdom.

IV

When we move to the social level, our claim of immediate balm and the calming of our anxieties becomes more difficult. Here it is much more difficult to say that a society that cares for others offers a higher level of blessedness than a society organized around personal gain and security. But Isaiah 58 might have us consider this: Are people more happy in a society that cares for its poor, that gives out justice evenhandedly, or that makes provision for the homeless and helpless than one that keeps the haves from living at the expense of the have--nots? A recent large, urban high school class reunion made some interesting comments to the reporter covering their reunion. This class was the first one to experience busing for the purposes of racial integration in their city. Interviewed at their anniversary of the beginning of busing, they said that they felt privileged to have this experience in their high school years for it gave them a chance to live beyond the racial barriers in their city. Both races expressed the same sentiments to the reporter. Quite interestingly, they didn't feel that busing was a major problem, but they said that it was a problem to their parents and the older generations. It was parents and other elders who voiced strong dissatisfaction that made it unworkable in many instances. This might be evidence that the younger set more easily experiences a benefit coming from efforts at justice than do persons who are older.

Except for persons who have been part of a serious justice effort, we do not seem to be a very happy people. Our individualism has gotten out of hand and we resent calls to consider the less fortunate. We grumble about affirmative action. We are armed to the teeth and the NRA continues to feed our fears. We execute the mentally handicapped, the poor, and our minorities. We protest half--way houses in our neighborhood. We tax--starve our public schools. We allow corporations to destroy jobs and pensions. We plunder our public lands and desecrate them. We build prisons to avoid the costs of treatment and realistic rehabilitation. We talk about smaller government because it will cater to our unearned securities and privileges. We elect public officials who promise no taxes, and we fuss about curb--cuts and ramps for the handicapped. But for all our individualism, we are not very happy. Might Isaiah 58 have something to say about all of this?

During World War II when the public focus was on destroying the dictatorships in Germany, Japan, and Italy, the public mood was at high pitch. There was a national spirit that overrode most of our personal concerns. Personal advantage and self--concern were at a low point. We rationed scarce things like gasoline, sugar, meat, and clothing. Men and women went to work in war--production plants. Others worked a half--shift in some war industry in addition to their regular jobs. When men teachers were drafted, women took their jobs. In one small high school the draft had taken so many men teachers that the band director was coaching the football team, but life went on and few complained.

Isaiah 58 can make us consider the possibility that a nation putting social needs above personal ambitions and concerns will be a nation that understands the healing power of doing good. This will be difficult in our present American society. But it is an intriguing promise. In our national doldrums we might do well to think about it. This could be gospel--like good news, too.