Scribbles & Sermons

Isaiah 58:1-14

Carl preached on this chapter this morning at Slaugham. This is mostly my responses written as he preached. Sometimes when I make notes during a sermon they are just notes, like those made in a lecture. Here they are much more my interpretation, although some bits of this are Carl’s words.

The chapter was read in a sad and reflective mood, but I feel the first half of the chapter is passionate, even angry. The second is loving and reassuring.

The significance of justice in our parish “statement of becoming” cannot be underestimated- these words from Isaiah hold up a mirror to our own failings – they are hugely challenging.

“Seeming” to be upright and godly, eager for all the right things, is not what God desires, unless your life reflects these attitudes.

This is about values that you have embedded in your life, not those that you profess with your mouth. That is what pleases God.

Treating God’s creatures with disrespect disrespects God himself. No relationship can be maintained without respect.
Praying and hoping for justice is not enough. Working for justice is necessary, not simply desirable.

Your own particular passions are where your focus should be – you cannot right every injustice, you have to pick your battles. But the passion places an obligation upon you to act. The passion also makes you the right person to act. Lots of people approach their pastor to force action in a particular area, and then are put out when the response is to put them in charge of the church’s response to the issue. They want someone else to take responsibility, perhaps seeing the issue as being too big for them. Because of this, we cannot act alone – corporate actions spread the net wider, cooperation strengthens action, mutual encouragement magnifies it.

After the sermon, as we listen to Tim Hughes singing “We must go” I realise that “Must” is not an external compulsion, it is an internal response to gratitude, to the love of God, to our sense of equality, of justice. These things are inbuilt, but our response depends on how effectively we bury our feeling of injustice beneath the selfishness of living our lives for ourselves.

We cannot (not may not) be part of someone else’s relationship with God. There is no player 3 in this game. We might be like the pilot who guides a ship out of harbour to the open seas, but once there, he then relinquishes control. That ship’s journey is not ours.

I look at Chris and still see the girl I married. I remember thinking how God might see my dear departed friend Ruth dancing in church, a slightly plump, very short woman with an effervescent personality. I had the sudden vision that God saw her as I see Chris – like her husband Ron, God saw the young girl, full of life and love, dancing with joy in her relationship with Him.

This should always give us pause for thought when we are embarrassed or ashamed on behalf of someone else, or find ourselves judging their spirituality, their relationship with God. What we see is not what He sees. We are not player 3, we have no place in their relationship, we are outside it. We can TRY to imagine what God sees, we can even ask him to show us. But until we can see past the superficial things, we can never succeed.

We can look at others and try to imagine how He sees them, but I imagine Christ sees people in an entirely different way from how the rest of us do.

(Barbara Brown Taylor – People in church we won’t sit next to?)

I’ve had an interesting three years since my last post. Coronary Care, abdominal surgery, atrial fibrillation.

My wife told me today to get off my backside, stop thinking of myself as an invalid, and get a life. Not to let my state of health define me.

So I’m going back to the things I stopped doing during lockdown, and I’m looking for new things too.

I’m going to post some scribbles made during the last couple of years first, and maybe then I’ll feel the need to start again properly.

Bless you all!

J

So, today is the beginning of Lent. 40 days of fasting leading up to Easter. Six Sundays that are always feast days, not fasting. Isaiah 58:6-7 reminds us that God’s view of fasting might be a little different from ours: it’s not about me giving something up; it’s about realising that our blessings are meant to be shared. So we consider feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, releasing the oppressed. “What you did for the least of these you did for me”. There’s more about this in last Sunday’s sermon.

We look at the world, and are easily overwhelmed by the scale of responsibility God places upon us. We can never hope to make a significant difference. That’s where we stay humble and focus on what we can do. Random acts of kindness, the most underrated of virtues.

I’ve signed up to follow Stewardship‘s 40 acts during Lent. 40 daily reflections, 40 challenges to respond to Isaiah 58. If I can do it, I’ll post a daily response.