No favorites, no politics
This week is on Isaiah 56:1-3:
These verses are another aspect of God's will for our lives. They're an exhortation to people who are out for themselves and their "family" only, and an encouragement to those who wouldn't otherwise have someone to love them and watch out for them. They're magnificent.
God tells us to maintain justice and do what is right. That isn't justice as in revenge, like he warns us about in the New Testament. It's justice as in making sure nobody gets overlooked, that nobody starves or freezes or just feels lonely, when someone else is around and can share. It means not playing favourites. It means being consistent. It means being attentive. Justice is hard. People go to school for years to learn it and still don't get it right.
The person God points out as the one he blesses is the person who doesn't take part in evil, and who doesn't desecrate the Sabbath. Desecrating the Sabbath isn't the sort of legalistic nonsense Jesus challenged the Pharisees on. It's taking a day of rest, a day meant to recharge and to glorify God, and perverting it to serve yourself, to get ahead of the game and take advantage of others downtime. If everyone has six days' labour at their disposal, and you have seven, how do you think that's going to turn out? Or conversely, if you're burnt out from working seven days a week to get the big house and nine cars, who do you think is going to have to bail you out? Right, the poor guy who has all he can handle working six days.
Not taking part in evil is pretty important. People are influenced by what they see people around them doing. If you do evil, others will do evil too. If you don't do evil, maybe someone else will have the courage to not do it as well. As they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're the problem.
What God is saying is "Can you think about someone other than yourself and your peeps for a change?" Everybody is valuable to God. Chances are, your social circle doesn't include all of God's social circle. So, when you make decisions based on that circle, you withhold justice from God's chosen.
God then goes on to demonstrate that he puts his money where his mouth is. In a tribal-based, family-based society, everything is about your connections. If you're not connected, you're prey. A man whose roots don't go back, like the foreigner, or whose branches don't flourish, like the eunuch, can pretty much count on a life of being left out of the party. The foreigner's experience will tell him "When resources get scarce, I'm the guy who gets cannibalized or voted off the island." The eunuch's bitter experience will tell him, "When I get too old to take care of myself, nobody will be around to take up my burden." God's response to them, and to us, is "Not with me. I won't abandon you, and I won't cheat you in order to bless the people I spent more time with."
This is why the question of "who is my neighbour" is so hard to answer. God's tribe is bigger than we can imagine. True justice is recognizing that fact. His tribe is defined by his connections, not by ours.
This is what the LORD says:
“Maintain justice
and do what is right,
for my salvation is close at hand
and my righteousness will soon be revealed.
Blessed is the one who does this—
the person who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it,
and keeps their hands from doing any evil.”
Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say,
“The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”
These verses are another aspect of God's will for our lives. They're an exhortation to people who are out for themselves and their "family" only, and an encouragement to those who wouldn't otherwise have someone to love them and watch out for them. They're magnificent.
God tells us to maintain justice and do what is right. That isn't justice as in revenge, like he warns us about in the New Testament. It's justice as in making sure nobody gets overlooked, that nobody starves or freezes or just feels lonely, when someone else is around and can share. It means not playing favourites. It means being consistent. It means being attentive. Justice is hard. People go to school for years to learn it and still don't get it right.
The person God points out as the one he blesses is the person who doesn't take part in evil, and who doesn't desecrate the Sabbath. Desecrating the Sabbath isn't the sort of legalistic nonsense Jesus challenged the Pharisees on. It's taking a day of rest, a day meant to recharge and to glorify God, and perverting it to serve yourself, to get ahead of the game and take advantage of others downtime. If everyone has six days' labour at their disposal, and you have seven, how do you think that's going to turn out? Or conversely, if you're burnt out from working seven days a week to get the big house and nine cars, who do you think is going to have to bail you out? Right, the poor guy who has all he can handle working six days.
Not taking part in evil is pretty important. People are influenced by what they see people around them doing. If you do evil, others will do evil too. If you don't do evil, maybe someone else will have the courage to not do it as well. As they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're the problem.
What God is saying is "Can you think about someone other than yourself and your peeps for a change?" Everybody is valuable to God. Chances are, your social circle doesn't include all of God's social circle. So, when you make decisions based on that circle, you withhold justice from God's chosen.
God then goes on to demonstrate that he puts his money where his mouth is. In a tribal-based, family-based society, everything is about your connections. If you're not connected, you're prey. A man whose roots don't go back, like the foreigner, or whose branches don't flourish, like the eunuch, can pretty much count on a life of being left out of the party. The foreigner's experience will tell him "When resources get scarce, I'm the guy who gets cannibalized or voted off the island." The eunuch's bitter experience will tell him, "When I get too old to take care of myself, nobody will be around to take up my burden." God's response to them, and to us, is "Not with me. I won't abandon you, and I won't cheat you in order to bless the people I spent more time with."
This is why the question of "who is my neighbour" is so hard to answer. God's tribe is bigger than we can imagine. True justice is recognizing that fact. His tribe is defined by his connections, not by ours.
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