Raise Your Voice

     Jesus warned that on this earth we'd have trials and sorrows.  Sometimes I can't help but think that is a major understatement.  Even as I read it, I know that the stories of the hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty are beyond my comprehension.  There are 1.2 billion people in the world living in extreme poverty on less than a dollar a day.  There are 38.6 million people diagnosed with HIV worldwide.  There are nearly 30,0000 children under the age of 5 dying each day of hunger and preventable diseases.  Tere are stories of abuse, neglect, and evil that freeze my heart and stories of stupid, senseless poverty that bewilder my min.  There are countless children...little treasures knit together inch by inch, by God...slowly undone by disease, poverty, and abuse.   And no matter how much I and you want to forget that these numbers represent real people, I know that each one of the nearly 30,000 children is a story of a treasure.  A diamond God crafted to catch and reflect his light just so, but now kicked in the dirt, muddied, unrecognized, and abandoned.

     This is such a harsh messed up world...and I don't know how to take it.  I want to throw up my hands and accuse God or someone or something.  Of course, the Bible has never shied away from the state of this world. The first son born to man murdered the second one, and famine and disease are as old as Abraham.  Indeed this world is fundamentally broken and won't be fixed in our lifetime.  I read the stories day after day.  Stories of unthinkable genocide and cruelty, tribes wiping out entire tribes.  Stories of pandemics crippling entire nations and erasing generations.  Stories of children given little opportunity at life before being sold as slaves or stolen as soldiers.  Stories of babies whose lives were forfeited from the start without nutrition, clean water, or care.

      On The Other Hand...
     But on the flip side, I am experiencing a very different story unfolding.  The stories I see on the Internet stay in that little screen...they don't invade my world.  My section of the world is living through unprecedented prosperity, safety, and opportunity.  Advances in technology, industry, trade, education, and law have created a barrier of opportunity.  Sure, we all grew up pinching pennies, but weren't we always well fed.  We grew up with choices like would we go to college, where would we find a good job with health benefits or buy a house.  Far from the despair reigning in certain pockets of the world, our world and us are thriving.  We have more material wealth than any other generation in history.  I drive down the road and see huge houses, new schools and mega corps, mega malls, and mega churches.   The churches we attend are thriving and stock piling donations and not using them...just setting there.

     Put simply we are prospering.  But never able to leave well enough alone, I still can't help but wonder, as I sip my Boston Stoker coffee on an easy Sunday afternoon: Is this pleasing to God?  Is this His vision of what His world should look like?

     Looking at God's word, I see it isn't the first time the question has been raised.  The nation of Israel, in the time of Isaiah the prophet, faced a similar question.  The people of Israel were a good people.  In some ways they are like us.  In many ways they were better.  They were pious, keeping up their religious practices. They were prosperous, enjoying the fruits of their righteous nation.  They were well intentioned, regularly seeking God.  And they very rightfully asked God, " Does this not please you?"

Blessings of True Worship

Shout it aloud, do not hold back.

Raise your voice like a trumpet.

Declare to my people their rebellion

And to the house of Jacob their sins.

For day after day they seek me out:

They seem eager to know my ways

As if they were a nation that does what is right

And has not forsaken the commands of its God.

They ask me for just decisions

And seem eager for God to come near them.

“Why have we fasted, they say,

and you have not seen it?

Why have we humbled ourselves

And you have not noticed?”

Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please

And exploit all your workers…

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen?

Only a day for a man to humble himself?

Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed

And for lying on sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast,

A day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not his the kind of fasting I have chosen:

To loose the chains of injustice

And untie the cords of the yoke

To set the oppressed free

And break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

And to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-

When you see the naked, to clothe him,

And not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;

Then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;

you will cry for help and he will say: here am I. 

then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you always;

He will satisfy your needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:1-3; 5-7; 8-11

      I am sure that you will agree with me that it is hard not to make the comparisons...these Israelites' religious lives sound alot like mine.  They went to Temple everyday.  They devoted themselves to learning about God.  They prayed faithfully.  Ok....most of us do not go to church every day.  But when I read this, I see myself ...eager for God to come near, attending church meetings, reading the Bible faithfully, and doing Bible studies to know more about God.  

     But God was not impressed with the Israelites.  And I'm not sure He is pleased with my religiosity either.  I can't help but ask, "Why not, God?  Don't you see how much I'm doing for you?  Don't you know how busy I am for you? Haven't you seen my acts of worship--fasting and prayer?  He answers,  "Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?" 

     What a crushing moment.  

     What does God want from me...from His people?  What is true fasting, true religion?  God says it is this: "to share your good with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, to clothe him."  And James gives me another clue: " Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress."  James 1:27 

     Feeding the poor, caring for the oppressed...that's messy stuff.  But what if what God wants is messy?  What if, like the Israelites, my spiritual service is a bit too tidy? a bit too contained in the white walls of religion?  a bit too focused on me? What if all this time I've been polishing myself up to exhibit spiritual excellence--like it's some precious jewel-- when what God really wanted was something wholly different?  Not to stay home perfecting myself, but to go out into the world.  To transform it through action, in service and in love.  Honestly, leading a Bible study and fasting sounds a whole lot easier.  But when I read those passages again, the conviction doesn't go away.  God is calling His people--me--to do something different. To spend time bringing refreshment and restoration to the broken and beaten down in the world.  

     Perhaps, God has a journey waiting for me and you to help Him restore, a journey He's calling us on to be His light in a dark world. 

~ Taken and paraphrased to our lives from "Hope Lives" Compassion International