“Does What We Do Here Matter?”

Isaiah 58:1-12

Rev. Deborah Church Worley

February 9, 2020

White Rock Presbyterian Church

“Yet day after day they seek me

    and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

    and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;

they ask of me righteous judgments,

    they delight to draw near to God.

‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?

    Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’”

(Isaiah 58:2-3a)

Things happen that affect us. Right? That seems obvious enough. Things happen in the world–tragedies, celebrations, natural disasters, political crises, national events, community events, momentous occasions, mundane occurrences…I could go on and on. Things happen. Sometimes they happen around us, sometimes they happen to us. And they affect us. But they’re not always about us. Right?

Not everything is about us. Despite what we sometimes like to think, despite how we sometimes feel, despite how we were trained for our first two years of life 🙂 , we are not always at the center of the universe! It’s not all about us….

But boy, it’s easy to fall into that way of thinking–focusing largely how how things affect us, how we feel about the things have happened and are affecting us, how we need to behave in light of the things that have happened and are affecting us, how our behavior will affect the things that have happened and are affecting us….. It can kind of seem like it is all about us! Why isn’t it all about us? What’s wrong with thinking in terms of how things affect us? And behaving from that place of how things have affected us? It’s our life, right, that’s being affected? It can kind of feel like it is all about us, at least from our perspective. How else are we supposed to think about things that affect us?? At least that’s how it all seems to me, sometimes….

It also seems to me, that that’s how it seemed for the people to whom Isaiah was speaking, on God’s behalf, in this morning’s passage. They seemed to think it was all about them, and that that was fine! And more than fine, that it was good! And even more than fine and good, they seemed to think that what they were doing was what they were supposed to be doing! 

Let’s look back at the text to see what it was they were doing…. I invite you to open a Bible, if you haven’t already, and look at it with me. The passage can be found on p. 600 (?) in the pew Bible…. Isaiah 58…..[wait…]  Okay, look at verse 2 with me: “Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways….” That seems fine and good, right? What is there to complain about with seeking God and delighting to know God’s ways? Then look a little further down in that same verse: “they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.” Again, fine and good, right? Would that we all found delight in drawing near to God! And then in verse 3, we see that, apparently, they were fasting–that seems good. And they humbled themselves…. Hmm, well, okay, the fact that they seemed to have drawn attention to their practice of humbling themselves may be a little bit of a red flag….But still–they were seeking God, they were delighting to know God’s ways, they were delighting to draw near to God, they were fasting–all fine and good practices, and, I would think, practices they would have thought they were expected to be doing.  So what’s the problem? 

Because apparently, there is a problem. Let’s look at God’s response, as it comes through Isaiah’s words. Look right at the beginning, the latter part of verse 1: “Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.” But these were people who thought they were seeking God’s ways and taking delight in drawing near to God! Apparently everything was not as fine and good as they seemed to think. Look at verse 2 again: Yes, it says “Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways,” but then it continues: “as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.” Ouch! That’s pretty harsh! “…as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.” And there’s still more. Look at the latter half of verse 3, into verse 4: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.” There is a serious disconnect between what the people seemed to think they were doing, and how God saw what they were doing…. 

These people seemed to think they were doing what they should do, and they seemed to feel pretty good about it. And it would seem, from all outward appearances, that they were doing what they should be doing, and even that it would be okay for them to feel good about that……. 

But therein, I believe, lies the rub. 

From all outward appearances, they were, indeed, doing what they were supposed to be doing. From all outward appearances, what they were doing was fine and good. 

But that’s the thing. It was only fine and good from all outward appearances. Beyond that, it didn’t matter. Beyond the outward appearances, it didn’t seem to matter. None of it really seemed to matter. 

It apparently didn’t make a difference in anything other than in how they spent their time in those moments. Their professed seeking of God, their supposed delight in knowing the ways of God, their alleged delight in drawing near to God–none of that seemed to have any effect on how they lived their lives. 

None of it seemed to have any consequence on how they treated their workers or others among them who were oppressed. None of it seemed to have any ramifications for those among them who needed food, or clothing, or shelter. None of it seemed to cause any movement toward justice for those who lived with injustice.

None of the things they were doing that seemed fine and good from all outward appearances–the seeking of God and God’s ways, the drawing near to God and the delighting in drawing near to God–none of that seemed to carry with it any concrete manifestation of having drawn near to God. None of it seemed to bring forth any hint of God’s kingdom! 

None of it seemed to cause any change in the un-kingdom-of-God-like conditions of the lives of people around them, nor did it seem to have any effect on the un-kingdom-of-God-like condition of their hearts. 

They didn’t get it. It wasn’t all about them. It wasn’t all about what they were doing, even if they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, even if what they were doing was fine and good. 

It wasn’t meant to stop with them. But it did. 

And that was the disconnect that God, through Isaiah, was pointing out: beyond the outward appearances, none of it seemed to matter. And God is nothing if not NOT about outward appearances. 

God is about inner transformation. Inner transformation through acceptance and forgiveness and belonging and love. Inner transformation that leads to healing and wholeness. Inner transformation…that then leads to outer transformation, which is absolutely not to be confused with outward appearances. 

God is about inner transformation, that then leads to outer transformation–transformation of relationships, of societies, of systems; transformation that brings justice, that lifts the oppressed, that provides food and clothing and shelter for those in need. 

God is about inner transformation that leads outer transformation, all of which works together to bring the kingdom of God to earth. 

God is so not about outward appearances.  That’s what the people to whom Isaiah speaking didn’t seem to get. It wasn’t about them!

It was, and is, about God. It’s about doing the things the people were doing–seeking God, delighting in knowing God’s ways, delighting in drawing near to God–but not because those are the things we’re supposed to be doing. Not because in doing them, we can feel good about ourselves for doing them. Not because by doing them, we then feel God owes us something or will put more gold stars in our crowns. 

But we do them because we want to know and seek and delight in God. We do them because we have a sense, somehow, that God has invited us to do them; we have a sense, somehow, that God has stirred in us a desire to do them; we have a sense, somehow, that in knowing and seeking and delighting in God, we will discover that God already knows and seeks and delights in us! 

And as we discover that–as we discover that God takes delight in us, as we discover that God knows us and loves us, we are changed. That inner transformation begins, that transformation that happens through acceptance and forgiveness and belonging and love. 

As we discover that God already knows and delights in us, we begin the journey to healing and wholeness, and we cannot help but draw ever nearer to God, and in that process, we cannot help but learn God’s ways, and in that process, we cannot help but let the transformation that is happening within us begin to show itself in our relationships, and in the ways we interact in society, and in the needs we notice around us that previously we had not. 

As we are transformed from the inside out, we cannot help but be a part of the transformation of the world around us. We cannot help but work with God in the birthing of God’s kingdom in this place and in these times….

So let’s do all the things that the people God reprimanded were doing–let’s seek God, let’s delight in drawing near to God, let’s delight in knowing God’s ways–but it cannot, and must not, stop with us. Let’s not just do those things because we think it’s all about us. Because it’s so not all about us. It’s all about God.

The people to whom Isaiah was speaking didn’t seem to get that. All that they were doing that was fine and good, all that they were doing to seek God and to learn God’s ways, all that they were doing in their worship of God–none of it really seemed to matter, beyond outward appearances….

My prayer is that what we do here is not just for outward appearances. My prayer is that what we do here is not about us. My prayer is that what we do here is about God and bringing God’s kingdom to earth. My prayer is that what we do here, matters.

Amen.