Judah, the Hebrews’ southern kingdom, was big on denial. By 740 BC, when Isaiah began to preach, the brutal and ambitious kingdom of Assyria had amply demonstrated their intentions and abilities. They were bent on conquering Egypt, the prize of the Mediterranean, and had to conquer everything else along the way in order to do it. Assyria was located about where Iraq is now, and between them and their ultimate goal lay a number of small city-states and the kingdoms of Syria, Israel, Moab, Edom, and Judah itself. Bit by bit they moved south, conquering, enslaving, and destroying as they came. For one brief moment it looked as though the combined might of Syria and Israel might stop them, but by 740 BC, about 160 years after they had begun, the Assyrian armies were firmly entrenched on Israel’s northern borders. All that was left of Syria when Isaiah started preaching was their capital city, Damascus.
Stop and consider that for just a moment. The capital city of Syria has been Damascus for over 3000 years. Our capital has only been in existence for 200. That ought to give us a different perspective on the current unrest in the Middle East, don’t you think?
At any rate, Israel was looking nervously at the Assyrian armies poised on their northern borders. Amos and Hosea preached passionately to Israel about the need to change their ways and return not only to right worship of YHWH God but also to obeying him in matters of justice, fair trading and the protection of the poor. But instead of choosing to return to God, and to trust in him for deliverance, they decided to rely instead on military might and alliance with their former enemies, the pagan Syrians. The Israelites didn’t listen to the prophets' warnings. According to the Biblical viewpoint - and ours - this stubborn refusal to take bad news seriously resulted in their eventual defeat by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser.
For the first 20 years of Isaiah’s mission, Assyria was steadily conquering more and more territory north of Judah. Both kingdoms vacillated between paying tribute to Assyria and making futile alliances with Egypt. Town by town, the countryside around Samaria was chewed up by the Assyrian juggernaut. Refugees spilled over Judah’s borders. Archeological records show that the population of Jerusalem nearly tripled during that time. And still the Assyrians came on.
But when Isaiah stood on the steps of the temple and called the people of Judah to account, alternately pleading and threatening them with disaster, they didn’t listen any more than Israel had. After all, didn’t they have the temple? How could God pull his protection out from under them when he lived there?
Isaiah had pretty much the same message for Judah that Amos had had for the northern kingdom. Amos started with condemnation of the way Israel handled its business and treated its poor, and ended up with a scathing indictment of their religious practices.
I hate, I despise your festivals,” said the Lord, “and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps." [Amos 5:21-23]
Isaiah, on the other hand, starts with God’s opinion of Judah’s religion: "Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; 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. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 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.” [v. 10-15]
Both Isaiah and Amos condemn false religion; both Amos and Isaiah condemn exploitation and oppression. I have some questions.
My first question is, “Which comes first? False religion or social injustice?” Does failing to love and care for one’s neighbor cause one to worship God incorrectly? Or does false worship, whether it’s worship of a false god or flawed worship of the true God, cause oppression and exploitation?
And my second question is, “Which is worse? False religion or social injustice?” If we took care of our poor and were honest in all our business dealings, would God care how often we went to worship, or read our Bibles, or prayed?
I think the first question is pretty clear. False religion contributes to - if it doesn’t directly cause - exploitation and oppression. If we mistreat our neighbors - even the ones we don’t know - we cannot be worshiping correctly. As John wrote in his first letter, "Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’ while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness." [1 Jn 2:9-11]
The second question is much harder. And the answer it really rests on figuring out if you really can have social justice without right worship. A lot of people seem to think so. Is it possible, truly, to treat each other with justice if we neither know nor respect God?
I think, that if we look at our culture, our society, the answer becomes clear. The farther away from God we drift, the less civility, kindness, forgiveness and charity we see. The Supreme Court decision outlawing prayer in public schools marks the beginning of decades of worsening statistics on everything from children born to unmarried parents to violent crime. And we know all too well that fatherless children are more likely to be trapped in poverty and wind up in prison.
God’s standards of personal behavior lead to a just and prosperous society. Short cuts do not work. Even the idea of a just and prosperous society is God’s idea, not ours. We forget that we owe everything from public education to health care, from the abolition of slavery to the Geneva Convention, to the values and practices instilled in us by 2000 years of trying, however poorly, to obey God. And even now, much as the political left jeers at the idea of compassionate conservatism, religious conservatives give far more in charity and volunteer time than those who rely on correct political attitudes to validate their sense of virtue. The author was surprised - but I am not. Because I know that loving our brothers and sisters are personal acts, not economic ones.
But even more important than the pragmatic reasons for living according to God’s ideas of virtuous behavior is that God calls us to a relationship with him. And we come into that relationship, and grow in that relationship, when we enter into worship.
God gave the Hebrews rules for regulating worship, days and times and places to drop everything else and gather around the tabernacle or the temple or the Word, and listen, and repent, and rejoice. We need that time. And without that framework of repetition and mutual accountability, we will drift farther and farther away from the God who made us and calls us and gives us purpose and identity.
The Israelites and the Judeans both thought that if they did the prescribed rituals on the Sabbath, they could do anything they wanted during the rest of the week. In our day, Protestants often thought that if they went to Sunday worship and read their Bible it didn’t matter whether or not they underpaid their employees or cheated on their spouses. Catholics had the reputation for being able to sin all week as long as they went to confession and to Mass. The accusation that Christians were hypocrites had all too much basis in fact. And I am happy to stipulate that hypocrisy is bad. But is it really worse than open disregard for God?
Nowadays we think that if we’re “good people” that’s all that matters. Honesty, fair dealing, and “random acts of kindness” are all very well - in their limited fashion. But if there is no God, why should we be honest, or generous, or self-controlled? As Dostoyevsky pointed out in his great novel Crime and Punishment, “if there is no God, anything is permitted.” We are living off of the moral capital built up over 2000 years of Christianity, and that capital is running out. The interest - pun intended - is diminishing year by year. We deplore the loss of morality, the loss of civility, the loss of social stability - and yet how many of us recognize that those are only the deeper symptoms of a greater loss, the loss of our sense of accountability before God?
Perhaps open disrespect for God is necessary for us to waken to a renewed sense of urgency, a real conviction of the need for a real change in the way we worship, a real change in the way we live out our Christian witness.
We do not have prophets like Amos and Isaiah, Micah and Jeremiah, to call us back to God. Actually, we do, at least we have their words. But - well - they’re all in the Old Testament, that confusing and often bloody account of people who lived in very different times and conditions from ours. How can what they say have any bearing on our lives, after all? And besides, if anyone ever makes the astonishing claim that the bad things that plague our society have anything to do with our neglect of God, the outcry can be heard not only around the globe but reverberates for decades. Primitive superstition, we scoff. Know-nothing fundamentalists, say others.
But why are we so certain that neglecting or marginalizing our obligations to God is not the cause of everything from Covid to terrorism to climate change? How do we know?
After 9/11, there was a widespread resurgence of interest in religion all over the country. In my opinion, God likes renewed interest in him. Who are we to say God had no hand in that, to turn our hearts and our minds back to the eternal things? Only those, I fear, who are so wedded to the ways that seem right in their own eyes that they cannot admit a higher authority.
Remember what Hosea said, "Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel; for the LORD has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. . . because you have ignored the law of your God, I will also ignore your children." [Hos 4:1-2,6]
But whether or not God caused the crises we face, only God can solve them. Stanley Perry, a political theorist from Notre Dame, wrote that “once a civilizational crisis occurs, it is already too late for man to save himself.” You can tell from the masculine terminology that he wrote this some time ago. As far back as the 60's - and before - philosophers were already envisioning the collapse of a society which was no longer built on the rock of our salvation, but on the sand of our self-importance.
Can Washington pass laws limiting the incomes of corporate CEO’s? Yeah, I suppose they could - but the law of unintended consequences is likely to kick in in ways that we do not expect and would not like if they happened. If good laws could make people virtuous, God’s Sinai covenant with the Hebrew people would have made the coming of Jesus Christ unnecessary. And if good laws can’t make people virtuous, how much less can bad ones? Only the conversion of the heart can mitigate the greed and self-indulgence that rule most of us - especially the powerful who routinely slide through mysterious gaps in the justice system.
The letters to the churches in Revelation seem to be written directly to the American church. The church in Laodicea was told, "I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." [Rev 3:15-17] And the church in Ephesus heard, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent." [Rev 2:4-5]
So you see, Isaiah and Amos are calling to us, too, my friends. Returning to God is the key to restoring the land. But until we admit that the land is in need of restoration, and until we come to the realization that we are an integral part of that same corrupt land, nothing will happen. Bad news isn’t attractive. But the day of resurrection only comes after we have willingly faced the reality of our death. It is necessary for our spirits, as well as our hands, to be subject to God.
It’s not enough to mean well, or to wish peace and prosperity for our neighbors, or even to be decent and generous people ourselves. We must also return to God, depend on him, and build our very lives upon his providence and his word.
"If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." [2 Chr 7:14]
