Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
October 31, 2004
Isaiah 1: 10-18
In the musical, My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle is having trouble with men. She has been subjected to rigorous, at times merciless, voice training by Henry Higgins, and has developed a love/hate relationship with him. Even as she has fond feelings for him, so also, more often than not, he drives her absolutely crazy. In one of her moments of frustration with Higgins, Eliza turns to young Freddie, who is quite smitten with her. He begins to tell her how much she means to him, but Eliza interrupts him, and in this song, she indicates that she has had it with words. (Samantha sings Don’t Talk of Love… Show Me!)
Her song reminds me of the old saying, “When all is said and done, there is usually more said than done.” But, believe it our not, it also reminds me of our text from Isaiah. Whoever would have thought that Eliza Doolittle would turn out to be a theologian! But it seems to me that her song to Freddie is fairly close to the song that God sings to Israel. Basically, God says, “I’m tired of your rituals, I’m tired of your sacrifices…I’m tired of all your fine words. ‘Never do I ever want to hear another word.’ If you love me, if you truly intend to serve me and be faithful to me, show me! The time has come to put all your fine words into action. Show me!”
I am reminded of a story told my Mother Teresa: “If you are preoccupied with people who are talking about the poor, you scarcely have time to talk to the poor. I had the most extraordinary experience once in Bombay. There was a big conference about hunger. I was supposed to go to that meeting and I lost the way. Suddenly I came to that place, and right in front of the door to where hundreds of people were talking about food and hunger, I found a dying man. I took him home. He died there. He died of hunger. And the people inside were talking about how in 15 years we will have so much food, so much this, so much that, and this man died of hunger. See the difference?”
Cease to do evil, learn to do good. (Interesting how the prophet thinks we have to learn how to do good whereas evil just comes naturally.)
Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Orphans and widows, of course, had no legal rights in that society and so for the prophet they become the symbols of the downtrodden and oppressed.)
A true story told by Fred Craddock: “When I was a boy, we lived near a railroad track. I remember a number of mornings waking up, getting up, going into the kitchen to get some breakfast, and seeing some strange, ugly looking, poorly dressed man at the table eating – just eating away, eating away. I was scared of him. And when he left, I would say, ‘Mom, who was that?’
“She’d say, ‘Well, his name was Henry and he was hungry.’
“’Where’d he come from?’
“’He came down the railroad tracks.’
People called them hobos. They walked the tracks begging, maybe stealing, getting what they could to stay alive. They’d stop by our house and sit in our kitchen eating what we had to eat, just eating it like they’d never have another meal. And I’d say, ‘Mama, weren’t you scared?’ She said, ‘He was hungry.’
“’Well, I was scared of him.’
“’Well, he was hungry.’”
“Cease to do evil, learn to do good;
Seek justice, rescue the oppressed,
Defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
In other words, says God, “show me!” Don’t just talk about neighborliness…be a neighbor. Don’t just talk about community…do what you can to create community. Don’t just talk about love…do love – do a little, do a lot, but do love. Show me.
Let’s return to our text for a moment. Earlier in Isaiah 1, verses 5 – 8, we learn that Israel had been devastated by an earthquake. Things had been literally turned upside down, areas of the country looked as if they had been ravaged by a rampaging army, looters abounded. It would appear that the survivors, those untouched by the destruction, had turned to worship and sacrifice in thanksgiving to God. Not hard to understand – it seemed a natural thing to do. But this very worship is what seems to spark Isaiah’s protest. The rituals, the celebrations, and festivals are excessive, unnecessary and misplaced, he says. They aren’t enough, they aren’t doing the job, and, as a result, they are displeasing to God. Thus, you see, this text also becomes a commentary on worship. Isaiah raises the question, just what is true worship?
William Willimon, who is now a bishop in the United Methodist Church, writes, “A few years ago I was leading a discussion about preaching among a group of laypersons in an affluent Washington, D.C. suburb. ‘What do you look for in a sermon,’ I asked. Immediately, one of the group members said, ‘I want a sermon which helps me to think about things in a new way.’ Everyone in the group nodded in agreement. That’s the goal of preaching – to describe the gospel in some interesting and engaging new way, to help us think new thoughts and explore new ideas.”
Says Willimon, “All of that sounded good to me at the time. Yet over the years, the more I have thought about preaching, the less I like as a test for good preaching, ‘A sermon which helps me to think about things in a new way.’ Isn’t that the way we love to deal with things? We love to turn them over in our minds, then to go home and have a good lunch. We can then think, or feel, but never need to act. A good sermon ought to help me to act on things in a new way. Not just think about them.”
What good is it to talk the talk if you don’t walk the walk. Or, as C.S. Lewis said, “A person cannot remain just a ‘good egg’ forever. One must either hatch or rot.”
Says Isaiah, a good sermon, a good worship service, must help us, enable us, to hatch. Apparently the good, faithful people of Jerusalem were going to worship, making the proper sacrifices, praying to God, then going home and having lunch. And all around them, the land was devastated, people were suffering. And Isaiah protests, insisting that if worship does not carry with it some moral, some ethical demand, then it is just so many words. And God has heard more than enough words.” “Don’t talk of love…show me.”
Today is Reformation Sunday, the day when we remember Martin Luther’s protest against the Roman Catholic Church, a protest that eventually changed not just a church, but in fact, an entire world. Luther had a lot of issues with the Church, and one of them was this: in his opinion, the church had become all talk and ritual, and precious little action. And so he wrote, “Faith is a living, energizing, active, powerful thing. It is always in action…and it is no more possible to separate the works of love from faith than to separate light and heat from a flame…The Christian man, (Luther was not in to inclusive language) does not live in himself, but lives in Christ and his neighbor, that is, he lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love.” For Luther, the religious life could never be divorced from the ethical, and thus God was honored only as others were helped. Said Luther, sounding much like Isaiah, “God says that if you want to love and serve me, do it through your neighbor. He needs your help. I don’t.” Again, don’t just talk of love, show me. True worship must carry this ethical thrust, must include a call to loving action.
Last week, we dedicated our wonderful ark. And with that dedication I spoke some high-sounding words about acceptance and welcome and openness. What would Isaiah say about those words? What would Luther say? What does God say? I suspect they would say…show me. Follow up those words with concrete acts of acceptance and welcome and openness. Otherwise that sculpture becomes nothing more than just a bunch of cute little animals. I don’t want it to become that and I hope you don’t either. Words about acceptance can never replace acceptance. Words about welcome can never replace a welcoming act. I have attempted to tell the Sebastopol community what this ark means. Now it is up to each of us to show the community what it means.
And just one final word on this text today. I can’t quite remember what it is but I seem to recall there is something significant about to happen this Tuesday…. My forebears in the faith, the preachers in the early New England Congregational Churches, had a tradition of preaching an election sermon on the Sundays before significant elections. I would venture to say that we are having a fairly significant election on Tuesday. Certainly a lot of churches have been involved, I have never seen such church involvement. And while we are not supposed to, many preachers, both liberal and conservative, have come darned close to endorsing a candidate and telling their congregations how to vote, even sending the congregational mailing list to political parties. This really isn’t an election sermon and I am not going to endorse a candidate. I will vote on Tuesday and I urge all of you to vote. Going back to the Revolutionary War, the Congregationalists have always been a church engaged with the world around us. As we heard in the announcement today, next week we’ll learn about some new possibilities in faith-based community organizing in our community. No, I am not going to tell you how to vote, but I am going to say this. When you vote on Tuesday, I hope you remember Isaiah. In a campaign season that has been filled with so many words, often bitter, divisive words, remember Isaiah’s call to move beyond words; remember his call to concrete acts of justice and mercy, goodness and love. This is what God wants from us and from our country as surely as God demanded it from ancient Israel. Remember Isaiah, and then make your choice for President, indeed for all the candidates, make your choice for the one you believe can help us fulfill that call, can lead us toward that prophetic vision of justice and mercy, goodness and love. And when all is said and done, truly may God bless America and indeed, each one of us. Amen.