The Task of Obedience (Isaiah 1, 10-20)

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Methodist camp that I usual work at with elementary schoolers one week out of the summer. I was there visiting some of my fellow counselors and the Dean who is a good friend. I arrived just in time for dinner. I was amazed by how well most of the campers followed the rules. There aren’t many rules at camp, but the ones that are in place are extremely necessary in order to ensure everyone’s safety. Basics include, become silent when a leader puts their hand in the error, everyone helps clean up, and tell your counselor before you venture anywhere on your own. If you want a good social experiment, raise your hand with a group of individuals who know its meaning and see how long it takes them to be quiet – at camp, by the end of the week, its mere seconds.

But as amazed as I was there were also some very disturbing things happening in the dining hall. This particular week at Wesley Forrest is packed, as two camps occupy the space, elementary schoolers in the upper part and junior high students in the lower part, The two groups come together three times a day for meals. While I was eating, the next thing I knew there was a plastic cup being throw across a few tables, followed by several other items, It was all being relayed on the junior high side of camp. An adult’s hand up was up in the air, yet the ruckus continued. I looked at the two co-deans in charge of these particular students who were sitting next to me eating. They sighed and gave each other a questioning look as if to ask, ‘how are we going to deal with their disobedience this time?’ before pulling out their dad looks. You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that appear on parents’ faces when they are stretched to their capacity and their children broke a rule they knew of once again.

As I was reading this week's scripture passage, I could not help but wonder if God was pulling out the stern parent face. The people had broken the rules yet again. And they tried to cover up their wrong doings with religious mementos. My campers always knew just what words they thought they had to say to squirm out of the consequences of what they did wrong. “I didn’t mean to…”, “They told me too…”, “I didn’t know better…”, and the ever popular “I’m sorry….” With fingers crossed behind their backs. The Israelites knew just what words to say to God and what things to do to forget about all of the consequences for their disobedience as well. Or so they thought.

Can you imagine the shock on the Israelites faces when they receive their message from God – ‘I can see right past your words and actions to the heart of your worship and your false intentions. And I’m not impressed.’ Often kids are shocked and dismayed when an authority figure or mentor can tell them the reasoning behind what they just did. They think we’ve read their mind. But really their intentions weren’t all that hard to figure out in the first place. So you lay all of your cards on the table and see what move they make next. Will they own up to their mistakes or continue into a thicket of lies in an attempt to deceive you?

Adults are sometimes a bit harder to read. Sometimes we can guess another’s intentions, but all too often as we grow older we build upon the lessons around false repentance and deflection that we learned as children. But even if we cannot see each other’s hearts or the root of our intentions, God can. A fact that the Israelites in today’s passage seemed to have pushed aside.

We cannot full God by giving the Holy what we think is necessary or good. In a culture built around love of neighbor and love of God, they seemed to have skipped right past both of those pillars of their community and faith to worship. But what is worship if it isn’t built upon love of God and neighbor? The Israelites were offering sacrifices, as they thought was proper for worship. They used all of the right words to celebrate the different festivals in the temple. They took the right posture while praying. They ritually washed themselves in order to come before God. But they didn’t know why they were doing any of it. They had forgotten the heart of worship. They said one thing to God, while treating the neighbors, those who bore the imago Dei or image of God, unjustly. They were ignoring those around them in need.

The Israelites often get a bad reputation amongst some Christians when studying the prophetic books in the Hebrew Bible. But really, aren’t we just as guilty as the Israelites at times? We’ve grown into our culture that tells us to put ourselves first and forget about the wake of people that we may leave in our path. We buy things that were produced at another human beings offense. We ignore our neighbors next door, down the street, at the office, and around the world. And sometimes when we feel compelled enough we tell God and maybe our neighbor that we are sorry, but we fail to be able to name our wrongs. To own up to our mistakes.

See there is this funny thing about sin – there is no such thing as a sin with private consequences. Each thing we do, whether we realize it or not, effects another person. Even when we think we just broke one of God’s rules, so it must be a sin against God, it is really a sin against humanity. God gave us rules for a reason, to learn how to treat our neighbor. One of my favorite translation of Leviticus 19:18 states, “You should love your neighbor who is like you.” Oh how often we forget that every person is just like us, because we are all part of the family of God. We don’t get to choose our brothers and sisters, and if we are obedient we don’t really have a choice about how we should treat them, for to treat them poorly, even unintentionally, is to dishonor their Creator.

Here’s the thing – loving our neighbor is not easy. Which means loving God is not easy either. The two commandments cannot be separated because they are so linked to one another. Love is a discipline. Just as obedience is a discipline and a choice.

John Wesley believed that the basic tenants of loving God and neighbor could be broken down into three parts. Do no harm. Do good. Stay in love with God. Sounds simple right? But how often have we backslid, unintentionally, on one of these three this week? How easy was it to push those moments of disobedience out of your mind? We tend to remember the times that we do good and forget, or at least push out of mind, those times that we slipped up.

Christian singer Todd Agnew may have expressed the questions and anxieties around disobedience when he wrote the following lyrics to his song “Funny” “And You speak to me all the time and I can’t obey you to save my life. Well I can but I don’t. And I want to but I won’t. And I don’t do what I want to, I do what I don’t mean to and I’m confused.”

God knows that there are times when we just get so confused because the world tells us to act one way and God tells us to act another. The two just can’t be reconciled, so we have to make a choice about who to follow. And sometimes we choose wrong. Sometimes we pass by someone without smiling. Sometimes we let our selfish desires lead to arguments. Sometimes we buy products that required someone else to work for less than a dollar a day, so we could buy an 80$ pair of shoes. Sometimes we take credit for work that isn’t ours. And sometimes we silently wish that someone would shut up so we don’t have to listen to them any more. But there is hope for God has spoken to us, as it was spoken to the Israelites so long ago:

“Though your sins are like Scarlet, they shall now be like snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword.”

So what do we choose today? God knows that there will be times that we screw up, but asks that we be willing and obedient and admit our mistakes when we falter with our neighbor, disrespecting the God whose Hand knit them together in their mother’s womb. Let us examine ourselves and ask God to point out those areas when our heart and intentions did not lead us to Do no harm. Do good. And stay in Love with God. For our worship is just empty if we do not live out the reality of God’s message of love when we leave these walls. Amen.