We’ve all entertained in our homes at one time or another. We’ve had somebody drop by or invited someone for lunch or dinner. Maybe we’ve had people over for a weekend or longer. How do we treat visitors to our homes? We treat them pretty well don’t we? We try our best to make them feel at home, to make their visit fun, enjoyable dare I say exciting. We clean the house, make up the guest bed, and buy food we know or think that they’ll like. These things are the least we can do for somebody that we’ve invited over. How would you feel if when your company arrived your children ignored them? How would you react if your spouse wouldn’t even welcome them into your home? What if your dog bit them or chased them away? Would you be embarrassed, mad, irate?
In our Old Testament lesson for today, Isaiah writes, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Keep justice and do righteousness.’” He writes in the following verses, “For my house will be a house of prayer for all the nations.” And again, he writes, “The Sovereign Lord declares, ‘I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered.” What is Isaiah talking about? What does keep justice and do righteousness mean? Isaiah actually gets very specific as to what God has in mind. He writes elsewhere, “Cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.”
But why did he write that? What connection is there between defending the orphan, pleading for the widow and God’s house being a house of prayer for all the nations? Weren’t God’s Old Testament people standing up on behalf o others and including others in their worship? Perhaps we should jump back about 2700 years to Isaiah’s time and find out what was going on.
Isaiah was sent by God as a prophet to Judah. This was ftert the nation of Israel split into two part: ten tribes in the north called Israel and tow tribes in the hs south, called Judah. Isaiah was prophesying during a particularly bad time in their history.. Two of the worst kings of Judah, Ahaz and Manasseh, were reigning during Isaiah’s ministry. Ahaz sacrificed and burned incense to other gods. He sacrificed his own son to another god. In addition, he took gold and silver from the temple and gave it to the king of Assyria to keep him from attacking Judah. Manasseh was even worse and reigned longer. He built altars for other gods throughout Judah and in the temple, sacrificed his own son, practiced witchcraft, and used mediums and spiritists.
The kings were not the only people in Judah who did evil in the sight of the Lord. Many Jews practiced the same things as did these kings. They worshipped other gods and made for themselves idols. What was particularly upsetting to God in these passages is how His chosen people treated one another, especially those who were on or near the bottom rungs of the society. He is condemning His people who don’t act like His people. He is denouncing the people who ostracize those whom He has invited to His house.
Orphans and widows were near the bottom of the social ladder. They had no legal rights. You needed an adult male as your advocate to fight for your rights. An example of this is the story of Ruth and Naomi in the book of Ruth. When Ruth’s and Naomi’s husbands die, Naomi returned to her hometown, Bethlehem. Because of the dire straits they were in, Naomi changed her name from Naomi, which means pleasant to Mara, which means bitter. She explains that the reason is that the Lord had afflicted her by taking away not just her husband but her future and her legal rights as well.
You see, the connection between keeping justice and doing righteousness and God’s house being a house of prayer for all is that God uses us to extend His love to people. He uses us to proclaim His message of love and salvation. He uses us to show compassion and kindness to those who are afflicted or mistreated. He uses us to help those who rights have been trample on. He uses us to bring people into His house and His kingdom.
In our society, who would be considered an ostracized person? Single mothers, criminals, people of another race, immigrants, welfare recipients, the jobless, someone of another religious. Who do you think?
The question then is how do we treat them? Do we follow the poor example that we often see around us? Do we do the same as the Jews did in our Old Testament lesson today? Do we give in to our human nature and treat them as we perceive them? Do we do those God-angering behaviors?
Do we stop to help strangers or do we pass them by? Maybe we help those within these walls or those that come within these walls but most of the people are not here. They are out there. How do we treat them? Do we encourage the man or woman who is discouraged? How about the person who treats us badly? Do we respond in the same manner or do we try to love them? The truth is that we often mistreat these ignored, excluded and marginalize people.
Why do we do it? Is it a lack of compassion? Is it our own selfishness and self-centeredness that keep us from helping these people that have been discriminated against? Do we not want to be labeled at goodie-two-shoes or as a spoilsport?
I’m sure you heard about the young woman, a number years, who was sexually assaulted and beaten. For an hour she screamed as she was brutally attacked in a subdivision. Nobody went to help. Nobody called the police. Nobody! What did everybody do, turn up the television.
I know it seem unthinkable. If we were in the same position, to do nothing. Why didn’t those people help? The same reason we might not. The reason is that we are all a little scared inside. Well, more than a little scared. We say, “what if the guy has a gun? Hey, I have a wife and children to take care of.” As brave as we think we are, as fearless as we think we would be in a moment of trial that is probably as fearful as we are when we are face to face with it.
Why don’t we help others when they are in need? We, like the Jews, sometimes act as if we are better than others, especially those who aren’t as religious as we are. Because we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, we often treat others very poorly, especially those outside of these church walls. We sometimes ostracize others because they don’t believe in Jesus. We also look down on others because they aren’t one of us.
One great example of this in the Bible is when the apostle John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” Jesus responded to him, “Do not stop him. No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.” Why do we get so wrapped up in this exclusiveness?
Cliques abound in schools. You start to see them already in preschool. Some kids hang out together and others will not associate with them. It gets worse in junior high and high school because they have learned labels to throw at one another or other more dangerous weapons. How about in adulthood? Do we exclude others because they are not part of “our crowd”? It pervades our thinking all the days of our life because our sinful flesh still clings to us.
But God has done what we could not. He has done righteousness. He did it. He did the righteousness that we could not earn. Jesus kept all the commandments for you. He fulfilled them perfectly in your place. He took on the role as outcast for you. In the words of Isaiah, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He was falsely accused by Jewish officials. “Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not.” He was handed over to Roman authorities to be punished as a criminal. “Surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows.” He was hung on a cross as a common criminal. “Yet we considered him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.” He died the death that we deserved for our sins. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.” He took the punishment for our thinking too highly of ourselves, for looking down our noses at others, for ALL of our sins. All of our sins are paid for. “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed.” Jesus paid for them all. Jesus rose on the third day to prove that your sins are gone and your account is clean. He did it. He has brought salvation.
And even today He continues to do it. He continues to give you the benefits of His death and resurrection. Through baptism, your sins were buried with Him in His death and resurrection and as He was raised to life, so too are you. He has given you His perfection as a gift. Isaiah assures us, “though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.” In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus again takes from you your sin and gives to you His perfect righteousness. Through His very body and blood, given and shed for you, he once again assures you that you are not an orphan but you are part of His family. You are not ostracized but on of His very own. He gives to you a name better than sons and daughters, He gives to you an everlasting name that will not be cut off. He gives you His name. Therefore, you are a Christian.
Now as forgiven sinners, we no longer look at ourselves as better than others. We reflect the love that God has for all people. We reach out to those who the world pushes aside. We proclaim to the ostracized people around us the wonderful promises of Jesus. We show them love by listening to their problems, helping them with their needs and being sensitive to their feelings. We share with them that God loves them. God has opened his house for all the people of the world. All are welcome. He invites them to be part of the family and therefore so do we.
