The Gospel According To Isaiah: Part 3
God’s Complaint
Isaiah 1:1-5, 12-20
March 11, 2012
Rev. Stephen Aram
Has anybody here seen the movie “The Lorax” yet? Our second son, Justin, and his wife, Brooke took our grandson, Weston to see it. I haven’t seen it yet, but I have loved the book since the first time I heard the story. It’s by Dr. Seuss and it’s a fun, silly story, with a profound message.
The story starts in a really beautiful place. It is filled with truffula trees, which came in beautiful colors and the tops were tufts of the softest fluff you can imagine. Brown Bar-ba-loots lived there, frisking around and happily living on fruit from the truffala trees. They were a sort of monkey. There was a pond where beautiful swans lived and humming fish swam, making a beautiful humming sound. It was like the Garden of Eden.
Then Mr. Onceler came and had the brilliant idea that if he cut down one truffala tree, he could weave a sort of sweater out of the truffula tuft. He called it a Thneed and told people they would really need to have a thneed. So he cut down one tree. Then he cut down another and another and another. He called his family and they made a factory and built a very efficient operation. But soon the Brown Bar-ba-loots had to leave because there was no more fruit for them to eat. The swans left because the factory polluted their air. The humming fish left because the pond was polluted. And soon the truffula trees were all gone and the Garden of Eden was left as a desolate waste.
But I haven’t told you about the Lorax. When Mr. Onceler cut down his first tree, the Lorax popped out of the stump. Dr. Seuss says
“He was shortish. And oldish.
And brownish. And mossy.
And he spoke with a voice
that was sharpish and bossy.”
“Mister!” he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I’m asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs” –
He was very upset as he shouted and puffed—
“What’s that THING you’ve made out of my Truffala tuft?”
And throughout the story as Mr. Onceler is happily cutting down the trees and making money, the Lorax keeps showing up and warning him about how foolish he is being. Mr. Onceler had good times once, but by his greed he was destroying his own future!
That’s just a cute story for kids, isn’t it? It doesn’t have anything to do with real life, right? Dr. Seuss published it way back n 1971. And every year since he wrote it his message has become more urgent. We are destroying our earth. This is a story we all need to listen to. The Lorax spoke for the trees.
Who speaks for God? We have opinions on everything under the sun: what the starlets wore to the Oscars, the Colts releasing Payton Manning, Snooki being pregnant, the economy, the weather. Political candidates live by the most incredible technology for figuring out what people want to hear, so they can make their message just as pleasing as possible. Maybe you’ve seen on TV that during the candidate debates CNN selects a focus group, equips them with clickers or some sort of dial so that they can watch the performance of a candidate and record their impression minute by minute. The lines on the display go up and down to measure whether potential voters approve or not. And the candidates mold their message to what people want to hear. And they mold it once for what people want to hear in Michigan, then again to what they want to hear in Alabama and again and again and again. And when they do hear that some people are unhappy with what they said the campaign manager comes right out to fix it by saying his candidate didn’t really mean it. Is it any wonder that opinion polls rate politicians about the lowest approval scores they have ever had?
But who speaks for God? Who tells us what we need to hear? Is there a voice that sees the big picture, that sees where we are heading, that understands the way the world ought to be and speaks up for that vision, who cuts through all the petty human ambitions and spins and distractions and says, “Here’s how God sees it, and we’re fools if we don’t listen”? And we may need them to say it a bit “sharpish and bossy.”
This morning I want to talk about Isaiah as a prophet because it is the job of the prophet to speak for God. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for prophet was often a seer, one who saw things that everybody else missed, who saw the big picture, what all of our human foolishness was adding up to, who saw that long forgotten, wonderful blueprint that God had in mind when he planned out the human race, who saw the remedies that God was offering, who felt the broken heart of God as he saw his Eden being destroyed.
In the New Testament the Greek word that is translated into English as “prophet” means literally a mouthpiece, a spokesperson. It’s not far from a press secretary. The prophets spoke for God.
Isaiah lived in a world that had lost sight of God’s plan for their lives, that was racing down the path to self destruction, that morally was cutting down all the truffula trees of their society. And last week we looked at the day when God called Isaiah to be like the Lorax, but not to speak for the trees. Isaiah was called to speak for God.
For our text this morning we’re going back to the first chapter of Isaiah. It is a summary of many of the main themes that Isaiah spoke on again and again, warning the people, calling them back to live lives that make sense.
Isaiah was a very creative, effective communicator. And he opens his message in the setting of a courtroom. God is the plaintiff, making his complaint against the people he created, the people of Judah. But he’s not just filing a complaint. He’s also offering a remedy. Only this isn’t just any courtroom, this is a cosmic case; the jurors are the heavens and the earth.
We won’t read it all this morning. But our text for this morning is Isaiah 1:1-5, then 12-20.
1 The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.
4 Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the LORD, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged!...
12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; 13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation -- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. 14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
18 Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
So what does God have to complain about? Shouldn’t God be happy with what we give him? If I follow the rules, isn’t that enough? He gave us Ten Commandments, if I keep 7 out of 10, some teachers would give you a D- for that. That passes doesn’t it?
Someone might say, “I go to church most Sundays. I bring my offering. I’m extra careful to hit the special days like Christmas and Easter. Isn’t that enough?”
And God shouts out to the heavens and the earth, “No! It’s not enough.” And Isaiah tells us how God sees it. He’s not looking for rule following, although the rules are important. He’s not looking for religiosity. He’s not keeping a log of how many hours we spend in church, although what we do in church is important. He’s looking for us to love him and to love one another. And God inspired Isaiah to say it using 9 different images.
The first image is in verse 2. God says that he reared children and brought them up. Most of us have been there. But they have rebelled against him. Can we stand beside Isaiah for a moment, listening to God’s broken heart? God is a dad. God is a mom. He’s above our gender roles. But one thing is the same. God loves his kids. He had nurtured the people of Israel and taught them and protected them and disciplined them now for generations. And they were rebelling against him. This isn’t a matter of following rules or religious traditions. This is personal. This is family. Most of us who are parents have had at least moments when our kids rebelled. Do you remember how it felt? Isaiah is opening a window into the heart of God for us. And when God looks at America in the year 2012, is it any better? Can you feel the broken heart of our God?
In verse 3 Isaiah changes the image. “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” A dumb donkey knows where to come for his oats. But the people of Israel had forgotten where their bread and butter came from. They had forgotten the source of their life. Think about what passes for prime time TV entertainment in America today, the conversations that occur on much of talk radio, the jokes in the taverns, and the profound ignorance of the Bible in our society. God sees that as being dumber than a donkey. Have we forgotten the source of our life?
We don’t have time to do justice to all 9 images that Isaiah uses to describe God’s heart for his people. We don’t have time to do justice to any of them, or even to skim over them all. That’s why the best Bible reading is always very, very slow, to let your mind and then your heart digest what you read.
But, to take just one more image, in verse 4, God describes his people as “laden with iniquity.” He sees the heavy load the people carry because of their sin. He sees the hearts that are broken by the bullying, mean talk, injustice, exploitation of the world. He feels the pain of kids who are trying to put their lives together in broken homes. He hurts with those who are suffering self-inflicted medical problems today because they didn’t take proper care of the wonderful bodies that God gave them. So many of our medical problems are self-inflicted. God feels the pain of those whose lives have been shattered by war. He feels the pain of those who have ruined their lives and are now trapped in prisons made of concrete or prisons made by addictions or prisons of hopelessness because they wasted their chance for an education and are finding it impossible to find a decent job. He feels the pain of people who are so hurting inside that they just react and push people away.
Can you hear the heart of God coming out in Jesus when he called out in Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Can we see our world through God’s eyes? Do we dare? Isaiah dared to look and listen and to care and he dared to share what he saw. In fact he dared to preach it over and over for more than 50 years, even when people didn’t want to hear.
And what remedy did God propose? Isaiah was clear that the answer was more than going to church, more than outward religion. God measures the heart. And it even ticked him off when people did all the religious stuff in verses 12-15 while their hearts and weekly lives weren’t right.
And just what does God want out of this court case?
Well, it’s clearly implied that he wants us to stop being rebellious children, donkeys that don’t even know where their food comes from. He wants us to come home. This is the same God in the Old Testament who, in the New Testament parable, stood, longing for his prodigal son to come home. It’s personal. Let’s be family. He wants us to let him love us.
And in verse 17 he wants us to love one another, too. He wants us to do good for others, to seek justice for others, to rescue those who are oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow.
And so in the last 3 verses he lays out the deal. There is no vindictiveness in God. In verse 18, even if our sins are like scarlet, the brightest and most permanent dye you could get in the ancient world. Even if our hearts are stained with the most flagrant and stubborn sins, God reaches out to us to make us clean again, to make our hearts as white as snow. He offers forgiveness. He offers help to get our lives straightened out. And that’s why he calls us together, so we can work together to become the people he designed us to be, to find our way home together, to do good for our neighbors together. If we’ll come home, he’ll bless us. If we are willing and obedient he’ll make life good.
But for the people of Judah, who were running away from God, who had used up God’s second chances, third chances, fourth chances, fifth chances, and so on, this was serious. In verse 20 Isaiah warns: “but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” They were very close to losing their national independence. The truffala trees of a moral society were just about wiped out. They were on the precipice of disaster. And Isaiah told it to them straight.
Where are we as a nation? We’re still the strongest nation in the world. Life for us is still awful good. But Isaiah’s warning stands for us today, too. God won’t bless a religion of going through the motions on the outside, but lacking in a heart for God. And he’s smart enough to know the difference. God won’t tolerate a nation that ignores the call of its most vulnerable members.
And so God makes his offer to every nation and to every one of us, one by one. He really loves us. It breaks his heart when we don’t open our hearts to him and love him and serve him with all our hearts. It breaks his heart to see us suffer the consequences of going away from him. And he’s always calling us to come back home, home to healing, home to love. AMEN
