Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. ~Isaiah 40:2-3
In the Isaiah passage, God is instructing Isaiah to speak to the people of Israel who are in exile, that the time has come for their mourning to turn to gladness, their sorrow be given in for joy, that the past lays way for the possible of the new. These are verses of comfort brought forth after agitation. However I believe that these verses also are agitating us out of our comfort into action.
What do i mean by “agitating us out of our comfort into action?” Haven’t we already been through our suffering? Haven’t we made it and now should rejoice? Shouldn’t we be happy that we are in this stage of joy? Yes and no. Let me explain.
When we have made it out of something, we can truly rejoice. As a matter of fact, we should have a party. In the instance of our christian faith, when we come into the knowledge and experience of God the Father through God’s Son Jesus moved by the Holy Spirit, it is a joyous occasion. But does it ever stop there? Do we say “I am born again!” and then that is it? Not exactly. It calls us into a deeper exploration of what it means to have a relationship with God in our everyday lives. It calls us deeper into a journey of finding God where we would least expect to find God: in our neighborhoods, community centers, bodegas, parks, just to name a few. Our Christian faith calls us to stop, to look at all around and say, “God is here.”
In the midst of our journey, our Christian faith is also calling us to ask deep questions of our faith. What does it mean to be a Christian? What do I believe? How now should I live? How can I set an example for others? You see, Christianity is a way by which we begin a process of learning about being human, in learning that to be truly human is to interact with others as they wrestle with God and develop relationships between God and humanity. So becoming a christian is anything but having a party or saying “finally!” It is a change of heart and mind, and calls us to action from a different perspective, a God-given perspective of community and learning.
So what does all this have to do with Isaiah? And more important, what does this have to do with action?
We have gotten comfortable at church and forgotten our prophetic call to action. We are either preaching a sermon, or listening to one. We sing a song, we pass a pamphlet, we read a verse, and we are okay. We listen to the news, hear about the immigration issue happening in Arizona, and say one of two things, “That is awful” or “Jesus is coming soon,” but we are not thinking about how the body of Christ should react (What would Jesus deconstruct of us, to What is Jesus calling us to do) and what the body of Christ can do in this situation, or even begin to think if what is happening is just or not. The same is applied to the BP Oil Crisis, where the oil spill has affected many people in our own United States in terms of jobs and health, but even more so the long-term effects on humanity as well as our ecology. What does the bible say about that? Does the bible speak on issues of how to treat the earth? What does the bible speak to the issues of the job loss, or health concerns?
I propose that we have forgotten what being a christian means. We have been caught up in the action of services without service, speaking without deep reflection. We have become “arrogant” considering ourselves better than those that are in the world. And that is a problem.
And we need to repent from this pattern of thinking. We need the hard service of preparation, of educating ourselves on how to think about the issues of today and how scripture speaks into the situation, and even how that situation speaks to the bible. We need to start listening to what God is already doing in our community, and begin to join God in service. We must become responsible as the Body of Christ to extend out God’s love, mercy and grace as far out as our nets can take it. Because only then, only then, will we find out the blessings God has in store for us. We will understand that in our hard work and service God has always been there, in the midst, sharing in the toil, and blessing us along the way. We will have had a touch of God’s transcendence in all that we do.