Proper 14
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons:
With an Eye to the New
In the popular piety that so dominates American religious life, there is the saying that "God hears every prayer." The first seventeen verses from these readings in Isaiah contradict that sentimental belief.
Once again the lectionary has combined two separate oracles in this reading. Verses 10-17 form what is known as a Torah instruction, that is, an instruction given by God as his Word. Verses 18-20, however, are a rib, a summons from God to go to court with him.
It is clear from the first passage that Judah in the time of Isaiah (745-701 B.C.) loved to go to worship. They literally "trampled" the courts of the temple, a picture that always reminds me of the crowds in our churches on Christmas and Easter. But the Judeans worshiped not only on high festival days, but on sabbaths and new moons at the first of each month and with a multitude of daily sacrifices to the Lord. And assuredly, as with us, their frequent worship gave them the sense that they were right with the Lord.
The astounding message from God is that he rejects it all, and his rejection is given in a series of ever more serious tones: "I cannot endure ..." (v. 13); "my soul hates ..." (v. 14); "I am weary of ..." (v. 14); "I will not listen." Judah's worship has become to God an unendurable, hateful, weary burden, and when the Judeans pray, God will no longer hear their prayers. God does not listen to every prayer! He shuts his ears against it!
For those who think they do God a favor when they go to church, that is a shocking message indeed. And for those of us who have a habit of prayer, it is incomprehensible. After all, we read over and over again in the Psalms the assertion, "On the day I called, thou didst answer me" (Psalm 138:3, et al). And does our Lord Jesus not tell us in his parable that we "ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).
That which we overlook is another statement in the Psalms, however. "When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears" (Psalm 34:17). The assumption is that the Lord hears prayer only when it is uttered by those who are just in his sight. And of course that is the problem with the Judeans in our text. They are not just. Verse 15 tells us that when the worshipers spread forth their hands in prayer, that which God sees on their hands is the blood of the innocent poor -- the poor who have been denied justice in Judah's courts, the helpless who have been oppressed by those in power, the hungry who have not been fed, and the homeless who have not been sheltered.
That should give pause to all of us church-goers, who have come into the sanctuary to pray to God. Is there blood on our hands, indifference to justice in our hearts, callousness toward the helpless in our society? Do we minister to those in need, or like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, do we pass by on the other side? (Luke 10:29-32). Ours is a bloody, violent society these days -- just read the morning headlines. And far too often ours is a heedless society, sometimes even indifferent toward the plight of our own children, whose lives are scarred by divorce or left helpless by poor schools or trained only by television programs, or even ended before they are ever born by our epidemic of abortion. Does God, then, hear our prayers? Do we have any just claim to come before him?
In both passages of our reading, God offers us a second chance. "Cease to do evil," he teaches, "learn to do good." "If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land." God holds out to us the possibility of repentance and the assurance that we can be forgiven, if we will only turn to be "willing and obedient" to his Word.
That second chance, that turning, is offered to us through Jesus Christ. Let's face it. If you and I can only pray to God and have him hear our prayers when we are just, then not one of us has the remotest possibility of being acceptable to him. The only prayer we can have on our lips is: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). But that prayer, offered through the mediation and in the name of Jesus Christ, will be heard by our God, because Christ has atoned for all of our shortcomings and sins and terribly human failings. And if we cling to Christ and his work on our behalf, God sees his Son's righteousness, and he hears and he answers.
More than that, however, God in his mercy grants us his Holy Spirit, to work in our hearts, so that we are gradually transformed and find that we are able to do the good and to cease doing evil. Christ's Spirit enables us to be willing and obedient servants of our God. Christ's Spirit can gradually make us new persons -- new persons who go out and work in our society to establish justice and give help to the poor and bring an end to the bloodshed that stains us all. So the invitation is offered us through the words of Isaiah. We have only in faith to accept it.
Lutheran Option: Genesis 15:1-6
This passage forms the beginning of what scholars have called the Elohist's writings in the Old Testament, and it sets forth the first version of God's promise to Abraham of a son (cf. Genesis 17:15-16P; 18:10J). As such, it is rich in theological possibilities.
First, the promise of a son to be Abraham's heir is understood in the context of God's promise to Abraham to make him the father of a great nation and to bring blessing on all the families of the earth through his descendants (Genesis 12:1-3; see the exposition of Genesis 18, Proper 19). God here starts his centuries-long work of fulfilling his promise, that work that will finally result in the birth of Jesus Christ, "the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). Through Christ, God will indeed bring his blessing upon all, as Paul asserts in Galatians 3:8-9.
The details of this story command our careful attention, however. When God speaks to Abram, his first words are "Fear not." That is often the first word that is spoken when God draws near to human beings, lest they be simply overwhelmed by the majesty and glory of the Lord. "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10 KJV).
Having assured Abram, God promises him, "Your reward shall be very great," that is, your posterity shall be numerous. Abram, however, is very much like we are. He does not believe that promise! In fact, his response to the Word of God is almost blasphemous. God tells him, You will have many descendants, and Abram replies, "No, I won't." Obviously, it is not Abram's great faith that causes God to give him the promise, any more than it is our great faith that inspires God to give promises and good to us. God acts toward Abram and us simply out of his grace and mercy.
Abram believes that because he is an old man, the son of his slave-woman must be his heir. That is the law of the time, which finds its parallel in ancient Nuzi tablets of the fifteenth century B.C. Apparently it was a practice known throughout the ancient Near East.
But when God works to fulfill his promise, he takes little notice of human custom and law. Nor is he bound by what we call natural law and the seeming impossibility of an aged man and his wife having a son. Instead, God takes Abram outside in the night, and tells him to look at the stars and to number them if he can. "So shall your descendants be," God promises -- as numerous as the stars of the heavens. Out of an aged couple will come a "great nation," in fulfillment of God's word (Genesis 12:2). The people Israel will exist on the earth only because God will bring them forth, and they will continue to exist on the earth, no matter how often or much they are persecuted, because they are God's people, created by him.
Having been told by God that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, the author of this passage records, "And (Abram) believed the Lord; and (the Lord) reckoned it to him as righteousness" (v. 6). Here we have in the Bible for the first time the doctrine of justification by faith. Abram is counted righteous in God's eyes because he believes God's promise.
We should note therefore the nature of faith. We often say that we are justified by faith alone, but what is faith? Here in our text we see clearly that faith is believing the promises of God and then acting accordingly. Faith is hearing what God promises and then clinging to those promises, believing that they will be fulfilled, no matter what happens. Faith is committing one's whole life to acting according to what God says he will do.
God has given us lots of promises in the Bible, and our Lord promised us many things, according to the New Testament. "I will not leave your desolate. I will come to you" (John 14:18). "He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25). "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:20). There are many examples. And our faith consists in believing those promises and acting as if we know they will be fulfilled, no matter what happens to us and no matter what the times bring upon us. God always keeps his promises. To that we can always say, "Amen."
Once again the lectionary has combined two separate oracles in this reading. Verses 10-17 form what is known as a Torah instruction, that is, an instruction given by God as his Word. Verses 18-20, however, are a rib, a summons from God to go to court with him.
It is clear from the first passage that Judah in the time of Isaiah (745-701 B.C.) loved to go to worship. They literally "trampled" the courts of the temple, a picture that always reminds me of the crowds in our churches on Christmas and Easter. But the Judeans worshiped not only on high festival days, but on sabbaths and new moons at the first of each month and with a multitude of daily sacrifices to the Lord. And assuredly, as with us, their frequent worship gave them the sense that they were right with the Lord.
The astounding message from God is that he rejects it all, and his rejection is given in a series of ever more serious tones: "I cannot endure ..." (v. 13); "my soul hates ..." (v. 14); "I am weary of ..." (v. 14); "I will not listen." Judah's worship has become to God an unendurable, hateful, weary burden, and when the Judeans pray, God will no longer hear their prayers. God does not listen to every prayer! He shuts his ears against it!
For those who think they do God a favor when they go to church, that is a shocking message indeed. And for those of us who have a habit of prayer, it is incomprehensible. After all, we read over and over again in the Psalms the assertion, "On the day I called, thou didst answer me" (Psalm 138:3, et al). And does our Lord Jesus not tell us in his parable that we "ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).
That which we overlook is another statement in the Psalms, however. "When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears" (Psalm 34:17). The assumption is that the Lord hears prayer only when it is uttered by those who are just in his sight. And of course that is the problem with the Judeans in our text. They are not just. Verse 15 tells us that when the worshipers spread forth their hands in prayer, that which God sees on their hands is the blood of the innocent poor -- the poor who have been denied justice in Judah's courts, the helpless who have been oppressed by those in power, the hungry who have not been fed, and the homeless who have not been sheltered.
That should give pause to all of us church-goers, who have come into the sanctuary to pray to God. Is there blood on our hands, indifference to justice in our hearts, callousness toward the helpless in our society? Do we minister to those in need, or like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, do we pass by on the other side? (Luke 10:29-32). Ours is a bloody, violent society these days -- just read the morning headlines. And far too often ours is a heedless society, sometimes even indifferent toward the plight of our own children, whose lives are scarred by divorce or left helpless by poor schools or trained only by television programs, or even ended before they are ever born by our epidemic of abortion. Does God, then, hear our prayers? Do we have any just claim to come before him?
In both passages of our reading, God offers us a second chance. "Cease to do evil," he teaches, "learn to do good." "If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land." God holds out to us the possibility of repentance and the assurance that we can be forgiven, if we will only turn to be "willing and obedient" to his Word.
That second chance, that turning, is offered to us through Jesus Christ. Let's face it. If you and I can only pray to God and have him hear our prayers when we are just, then not one of us has the remotest possibility of being acceptable to him. The only prayer we can have on our lips is: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). But that prayer, offered through the mediation and in the name of Jesus Christ, will be heard by our God, because Christ has atoned for all of our shortcomings and sins and terribly human failings. And if we cling to Christ and his work on our behalf, God sees his Son's righteousness, and he hears and he answers.
More than that, however, God in his mercy grants us his Holy Spirit, to work in our hearts, so that we are gradually transformed and find that we are able to do the good and to cease doing evil. Christ's Spirit enables us to be willing and obedient servants of our God. Christ's Spirit can gradually make us new persons -- new persons who go out and work in our society to establish justice and give help to the poor and bring an end to the bloodshed that stains us all. So the invitation is offered us through the words of Isaiah. We have only in faith to accept it.
Lutheran Option: Genesis 15:1-6
This passage forms the beginning of what scholars have called the Elohist's writings in the Old Testament, and it sets forth the first version of God's promise to Abraham of a son (cf. Genesis 17:15-16P; 18:10J). As such, it is rich in theological possibilities.
First, the promise of a son to be Abraham's heir is understood in the context of God's promise to Abraham to make him the father of a great nation and to bring blessing on all the families of the earth through his descendants (Genesis 12:1-3; see the exposition of Genesis 18, Proper 19). God here starts his centuries-long work of fulfilling his promise, that work that will finally result in the birth of Jesus Christ, "the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). Through Christ, God will indeed bring his blessing upon all, as Paul asserts in Galatians 3:8-9.
The details of this story command our careful attention, however. When God speaks to Abram, his first words are "Fear not." That is often the first word that is spoken when God draws near to human beings, lest they be simply overwhelmed by the majesty and glory of the Lord. "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10 KJV).
Having assured Abram, God promises him, "Your reward shall be very great," that is, your posterity shall be numerous. Abram, however, is very much like we are. He does not believe that promise! In fact, his response to the Word of God is almost blasphemous. God tells him, You will have many descendants, and Abram replies, "No, I won't." Obviously, it is not Abram's great faith that causes God to give him the promise, any more than it is our great faith that inspires God to give promises and good to us. God acts toward Abram and us simply out of his grace and mercy.
Abram believes that because he is an old man, the son of his slave-woman must be his heir. That is the law of the time, which finds its parallel in ancient Nuzi tablets of the fifteenth century B.C. Apparently it was a practice known throughout the ancient Near East.
But when God works to fulfill his promise, he takes little notice of human custom and law. Nor is he bound by what we call natural law and the seeming impossibility of an aged man and his wife having a son. Instead, God takes Abram outside in the night, and tells him to look at the stars and to number them if he can. "So shall your descendants be," God promises -- as numerous as the stars of the heavens. Out of an aged couple will come a "great nation," in fulfillment of God's word (Genesis 12:2). The people Israel will exist on the earth only because God will bring them forth, and they will continue to exist on the earth, no matter how often or much they are persecuted, because they are God's people, created by him.
Having been told by God that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens, the author of this passage records, "And (Abram) believed the Lord; and (the Lord) reckoned it to him as righteousness" (v. 6). Here we have in the Bible for the first time the doctrine of justification by faith. Abram is counted righteous in God's eyes because he believes God's promise.
We should note therefore the nature of faith. We often say that we are justified by faith alone, but what is faith? Here in our text we see clearly that faith is believing the promises of God and then acting accordingly. Faith is hearing what God promises and then clinging to those promises, believing that they will be fulfilled, no matter what happens. Faith is committing one's whole life to acting according to what God says he will do.
God has given us lots of promises in the Bible, and our Lord promised us many things, according to the New Testament. "I will not leave your desolate. I will come to you" (John 14:18). "He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25). "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28:20). There are many examples. And our faith consists in believing those promises and acting as if we know they will be fulfilled, no matter what happens to us and no matter what the times bring upon us. God always keeps his promises. To that we can always say, "Amen."
