“Sometimes God gets tired of listening…”

(Isaiah 1:1, 10-20)

The vision of Isaiah son of Amaz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah….

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!

 Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?  Says the Lord;

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;

I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats.

When you come to appear before me, who asked this from our hand?  Trample my courts no more!

Bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.

No moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me;

I am weary of bearing them.  When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes;

Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan;

plead for the widow.

Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord;

If your sins are like scarlet, will they become like snow? 

If they are red like crimson, will they 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, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

I originally wrote a sermon on this text after I attended the funeral of the Rev. Phil Gillis some years ago.  Now, none of you knew Phil, probably, but he was a leader in our Annual Conference and a guy I looked up to and respected.  He stood up for justice back in the day when United Methodist preachers of stature did that.

At the time of his death I was sad and grief-stricken by the loss, but the celebration of his life and loves brought me back to God’s call on my own life.  He was an inspiring mentor and role model for clergy of my generation.  His obituary described him as “a reveler in transformation.”  Put simply, he preached the Gospel of the Jesus Christ who lived and gave his life for love, peace and justice.

            The pastor of the church he and his wife chose to worship at when Phil retired was listening to friends talking about him, knowing his death was imminent.  This is the advice they gave to Karen as she was contemplating what she would say at his memorial service: Just tell them what Phil would say: “Love God and love each other.”

            And so if we boiled today’s scripture lesson down to its essence, those words may give us a way to talk about it: love God, love each other.

            I entitled today’s sermon, “Sometimes God gets tired of listening.”  You may have heard this tiredness, this fed-upness as you listened to the reading.  It is as though God is saying, “I’ve had it with you people.  We’ve been over and over this.  You annoy me with your hypocritical worship and ritual.  Of course, I want you to worship and honor me through symbolic acts, but when you begin to do these things just as ways of showing off or of one-upping each other or of convincing yourselves that all is well, I can’t endure it any longer.  Your events have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.  I am tired of your empty prayers.  You need to wash yourselves and get clean because I’m sick of your evil-doing.”

            Clearly the people Isaiah is addressing are not in the business of loving God and loving each other.  Now, it occurs to me that some of this sounds familiar.  And I think there are two reasons.  We know that Jesus knew his Hebrew scripture and that the book of Isaiah was clearly motivating his ministry.  Can’t you hear him saying, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”  Jesus continues, “You abandon the commandment of God, and you hold to its human tradition.”  Jesus was telling us God was tired of the way the religious authorities of his day were behaving.   

Now, the second reason this all may be sounding familiar is that I wonder if God may be a bit tired of us and some of our escapades. 

            Perhaps God is thinking, “You claim to be a God-fearing people, yet you have made self-centeredness and egotism the law of the land.  You celebrate my holy days by buying ridiculous amounts of items for yourselves and your children while the rest of the year others’ children go without proper food and necessities.  You make judgments about certain ones of my children, excluding them from my churches, and then you call it my law.  You go to worship and want only to hear your own opinions affirmed.  You preachers back away from telling my truth because you only wish to be liked and fawned over.  I am so weary of all this.  How many times do I need to remind you to ‘learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow?’” 

…How many different ways in how many different times throughout human history does God need to tell us to love God and love each other?

            It is very clear that we have a responsibility here.  Anyone who is a parent has an understanding of how our love for our children is unconditional, but this does not excuse them from their responsibilities as citizens of this earth, citizens of their communities and of their own homes.  We all have responsibilities, and God expects that we will meet them.  When Isaiah’s people fell short, and they inevitably did, they were told by God through the prophet Isaiah to wash themselves and to make themselves clean, and, then, to stop doing evil—go from the scarlet of our wrongdoings to being clean as snow. 

WE have responsibilities too.  Contrary to popular belief, we have not been put on this earth only to give ourselves pleasure.  We are to love God and love each other.  Pleasure, happiness and joy are byproducts of this. 

…I know, I know.  This is not what we’re told these days.  We have been fed an unhealthy diet of “It’s all about me and my happiness.  If it feels good, do it.  And, you deserve it.”  Friends, this is not substantial spiritual food.  It’s a set-up for clogged-up connections between us and God.  It makes us unable to hear and respond to others and causes our spirits to shrivel up and ultimately die. 

No…loving God and loving each other, when practiced daily and internalized, we become partners with God and each other, unified in purpose. This creates happiness and joy within us.  This joy is beyond anything that food, alcohol, the perfect job, the exercise high, the ultimate sex life, the excess of power, the access of “stuff,” or the collecting of relationships can possibly provide.  

            So…God, through Isaiah, says, “Go wash yourselves and cease to do evil.  Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue those who have been hurt and put down, defend the powerless and stand up for those who are in pain.”  Learn to do good.  Love God.  Love each other.

            It is really pretty simple.  We don’t want to wear God out anymore and make God tire of listening to us.  We want to love God.  I know we DO. 

…Well, my friend Phil had them read words from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, at his memorial service, and reading a few of them is a good way to move toward closure today: “…I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.  Well, folks wondered, ‘When did we do that, Lord?’  He answered, “It was when you did it to the least of the members of my family, you did it to me.”

Love God.  Love each other.  Let’s not wear God out with our foolishness, our selfishness and our phoniness.  Let’s sing love songs to each other and act accordingly.  …We’re going to sing a song now entitled, “How Shall I Come Before the Lord.”  I’m going to read the words so you can pay attention to them before we sing.  This song is on page 3124 in your green books.

“How shall I come before the Lord and bow myself with heart outpoured?  And shall I come with offering?  What shall I give?  What shall I bring?

Will finest gifts bring God’s delight?  Will wealth bring favor in God’s sight?  What must we be?  What must we do?  What does the Lord require of you?

Let justice shine in all your ways.  Let loving kindness rule your days, that, as this earthly path you trod, you shall walk humbly with your God.”

And, of course, this should remind you of the prophet Micah, chapter 6.  “What does the Lord require of you?  To seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.”  Let’s sing….