Isaiah speaks with great moderation and restraint. He will speak and write of the divine anger, but we also need to pay attention to the divine sorrow he conveys within that anger. Anger is not the disposition of the Lord, but a state motivated by the moment that the compassion of the Lord will overcome.[1] He believed in the Davidic dynasty over all Israel. He believed Israel was doomed and would cease to exist. He believed Assyria would defeat Jerusalem, and this almost happened in 701. Though the defeat he expected did not occur when he thought, it would eventually occur in 587 BC. He was a strong critic of what had been happening on the world and political scene. He opposes alliance with foreign powers, whether with Assyria during the Syro-Ephraimite war or with Egypt during the rule of Hezekiah. Reliance on a world power meant a demonstration of the belief that human beings rather than the Lord, weapons rather than attachment to the Lord, determined the destiny of the nations. It also suggested that subservience to a foreign power meant accepting its gods and worship life. Further, such an alliance meant involvement in its military operations.[2]Isaiah could not accept politics as a solution, since politics, with its arrogance and disregard for justice, was a problem.[3] He notes every form of injustice and exploitation of the weak. He shows strong concern for the divine law, noting the use of the terms righteousness and justice. His concern is for the kind of society whose founder is Yahweh. He sets the transgressions in the context of saving history. Yet, Yahweh hardened the hearts of the people against the message of Isaiah. However, a small group did accept his prophecy. At the point of his passionate elimination of all reliance on oneself is the point at which the zeal of Isaiah begins. The question arises as to whether it is realistic to expect that nations would discard their horses and look to the Lord instead. It is hard to learn how to live by faith. However, Isaiah insisted that one cannot live without faith. Faith is not an easy or convenient path.[4] He saw a great act of deliverance coming soon. He wanted his contemporaries to make their existence rest on a future action of Yahweh. His conception of faith, being still, and looking to Yahweh, has a close connection with work and purpose of Yahweh. The idea of a plan to which Yahweh gives effect in history is a new element in the preaching of prophets in the 700's. Assyria, with all its might and victories, was only a tool in the hands of the Lord. Its power was a phantom.[5] When he thinks of purpose, he thinks of something planned for the deliverance of Zion, that is, of a saving work. Zion occupies the center stage of the plan of Yahweh. Although he appears to say that Yahweh would protect Zion from the Assyrians in all circumstances, he demonstrates some ambiguity in the matter. As to who would be affected by the salvation that the work of Yahweh would bring, the remnant is a possibility, even if he mentions it all too rarely. We must note that none of his great sayings about Zion came true. The nation showed no faith, and Yahweh did not protect the city. Did he demand too much of the people? Did he encroach upon the prerogative of God in assuring the safety of Zion? One wonders if he regarded his work as a failure. Another theme of the preaching of Isaiah is that of David and the Messiah. He does not attach what he has to say about the anointed one to a present king, but to one who is to come, who is to spring from the root of Jesse. He thinks of a new David who will restore the Davidic empire. He dismisses contemporary kings. Contemporary descendants of David have lost their saving function. They have relinquished their right to the praises contained in the royal psalms. Isaiah clearly envisioned the enthronement in the immediate future, that is, with the Assyrian crisis and its defeat. The preaching of Isaiah is based on two election traditions, that of Zion and David. They were both adopted by court circles in Jerusalem as the basis of their legitimation before Yahweh. What haunts him is the marvelous world that the Lord has made and the horrible world that humanity has made.[6]
Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 (NRSV)
Isaiah 1:1 is the title of the book, referring to the vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the rule of four kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. It reminds us that the word of the Lord to these prophets occurs in a context, including the real and contested world of politics and economics. The prophet ponders the situation in which he and the people stand before ethe Lord.
Chapter 1 has its reference point in the ultimately unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. by Sennacherib of Assyria. Isaiah directed his prophecy primarily to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, with a focus on Jerusalem.
In Isaiah 1: 10-20, Isaiah describes the difference between worship rites and living rightly. He describes way of deliverance from sin, or the way of true religion. He adopts a priestly style of speech indicating the way to true obedience and repentance. The passage is classical prophetic teaching. His concern is that the sacrifices and prayers offered by his contemporaries at the temple are useless because ethical action does not accompany them. What do their sacrifices mean? The Lord has had enough of their offerings. They are not to go to the courts of the Temple any longer. The Lord “cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.” The soul of the Lord hates these festivals, for they have become a burden. When they stretch out their hands in prayer, the Lord will hide from them. The Lord will not listen, for their hands are full of blood. “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes.” They are to cease evil and do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. The Lord encourages them to come argue it out. Though their sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow, though red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If they become willing and obedient, they shall eat the good of the land. If they refuse and rebel, the sword shall devour them. Verses 10-15 describe the attitude of the Lord toward ritual. The Lord either rejects them entirely or rejects only the vain rituals of unethical people. Both renderings are linguistically defensible. Rabbinic commentators prefer the second option. Isaiah wants to convey the mood of the Lord.[7] 10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! Here is part of the accusation that Isaiah makes against the leaders of Judah. Far from congratulating this remnant of the country's leadership, Isaiah equates them with some of the foulest examples of disobedience and self-destructive self-absorption he can recall from his people's history. The city leadership Isaiah likens to the leaders of Sodom and Gomorrah! He is comparing the inhabitants of Jerusalem to those of the most notorious and sinful Canaanite cities that were destroyed. 11 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. In verses 12-15, Isaiah rejects a religion that is manipulative in its belief that following rituals guarantees the blessing of the Lord. 12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? The Lord refusing to pay attention to the very things the Lord commanded in the Torah/Pentateuch is a little mystifying.[8] It might be best to understand Isaiah as using a combination of ironic language and a corresponding call to return to a form of religious expression that does not use even proper religious observances as a knowing or ignorant cover-up for unrighteousness, especially injustice. The purpose of such irony is to force the listener to seek the deeper meaning of sacrifice and other obedience to God. Prophets are calling the people of the Lord to the undergirding heart-religion/obedience emphasized by Deuteronomy, which leads to living out a life of justice in society, as called for in other portions of the Torah/Pentateuch. A religion of the heart (see Deuteronomy, etc., for the concept of heart-circumcision) will lead its observers not only to observe ceremonial practices, but also to live a righteous and just life in society that shows love for God and neighbor. Trample my courts no more; 13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. 14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you stretch out your hands, the typical gesture when praying at this time, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Imagine the shock Isaiah's message must have elicited from the dignitaries and pious potentates gathered in this solemn assembly. From the perspective of those devoted to the Temple, the people of the southern kingdom stand in the temple as a wronged people. According to the letter of the law -- though certainly not the spirit -- they have been obedient to a fault. Canaanite syncretism and politically expedient but morally questionable military alliances had steadily been eroding the divine covenant foundation that made Judah different from all her neighbors. Yet the cultic sacrificial system based in the Jerusalem temple remained in full flower. Thus, as the rulers and powerful citizens of Judah stand gathered in the temple, once again offering the required sacrifices to Yahweh as established long ago, they might have gazed out at the destruction wrought by Sennacherib and asked, "What have we done wrong?" Isaiah did not hesitate to tell them. The Lord has grown weary carrying the burden of enduring their religious sacrifices, observances, and ceremonies. The depth of the divine distaste is evident by the strength of the negatives Isaiah voices:
"I have had enough ..." (v.11);
"I do not delight ..." (v.11);
" ... is an abomination to me ..." (v.13, a word reserved for pagan practices);
"I cannot endure ..." (v.13);
" ... my soul hates ... " (v.14);
" ... a burden to me ..." (v.14);
"I am weary of ... them" (v.14);
"I will hide my eyes ..." (v.15);
"I will not listen ..." (v.15).
There is little evidence to suggest that Isaiah's rejection of the sacrifices and cultic observations itemized in 1:11-15 are a rejection of the temple system in general. The power of the prophetic voice was that it spoke to a specific people in specific circumstances. It is the spiritually polluted atmosphere that Yahweh finds so repugnant in the temple. Despite all the sacrifices offered, these faithless followers have failed to understand and live according to the spirit of justice and compassion that would make them genuine people of the covenant. With dishonest people, the trick is to offer sacrifices that are not needed or possible and to avoid making the required sacrifice.[9]
In Isaiah 1:16-20, the unit does not confine itself to complaint. It ends with an invitation to repentance and ethical action. Such an appeal in Isaiah is rare.
In Isaiah 1: 16-17, Isaiah enumerates the moral bankruptcy that precipitates such a complete rejection of the sacrifices and prayers brought to Yahweh. By listing what they should do, the prophet suggests that these are in fact the actions and attitudes that are missing from this the scene of worship life. He commends a religion that focuses on a series of imperatives summoning the people of the Lord to obedience, focusing on justice for the oppressed, widows, and orphans, all categories of people who are vulnerable and without ordinary social protection. He calls faithful people to make sure our traditions are still vitally connected to the work to the mission to which the Lord has called this people. The indictment by the Lord/Isaiah of Judah/Jerusalem is harshly unrelenting. Is there no hope for rescue and redemption? The way is clearly not through situationally meaningless religious observances — the leaders and people had already tried that to ward off the bad circumstances in which they were. First, even though priests and worshipers could gather for sacrifice only if they were ritually clean, Isaiah now insists 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. They must change their whole way of life. They must cleanse themselves not of the sacrificial blood they have spilled but of the bloodstains that they have accumulated on their hands and souls because of their evil behavior. Therefore, remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Isaiah enumerates the moral bankruptcy that precipitates such a complete rejection of the sacrifices and prayers brought to Yahweh. By listing what they should do, the prophet suggests that these are in fact the actions and attitudes that are missing from this cultic scene. Orphans and widows had little means of support. See also Isaiah 1:21-23. It is not only a matter of avoiding personal evil, but actively working for justice in society. Doing justice may be part of the way to be clean, and it is certainly the result of being clean. The Old Testament can understand cleanliness in both ritual and ethical ways; Isaiah and other prophets emphasize the latter. “Cleanliness is next to godliness” is not in the Bible (it is attributed variously, including to John Wesley, who could be citing a proverbial expression), but it is a biblical concept. The connection between cleanliness and godliness goes much deeper than having everyone keep their germs to themselves. Dirty hands, in fact, seem to correlate with a dirty soul. We have an example of this in English literature. In the play Macbeth, Shakespeare offers psychological insights about guilt that remain powerful for us today. In Act V, Scene 1, Lady Macbeth is sleepwalking and tries to rub her hands to wash the imaginary bloodstains of her murdered husband from her hands. She even ponders if her hands will ever be clean.[10]
Isaiah is disclosing a quite real problem of the human condition. When we deliberately do the wrong thing and nothing bad happens to us, it becomes easier to do it again the next time. We produce our own rules for our behavior as a way to understand what we are doing. Our behavior becomes a precedent for new rules. For that reason, we are better off rejecting doing the wrong thing even once, even if we see a path that avoids immediate consequences. Even once can lead to changing our ideas concerning our behavior. We become less motivated to be honest in our business dealings, for example, if we get away with intentionally doing it. We change the rules that guide our behavior, becoming less reliable guides to ourselves.[11] In this case, they engaged in right ritual. They observed the prescribed holy days and sacrifices in the temple. Yet, they developed new rules where such practices no longer pointed them to transformed lives. They decided they could live as they wished, if they followed the ritual observances properly. Jesus points to a similar issue in his exchanges with the Pharisees, who also took great care with cleanliness. Yet, his response suggests they make the word of God void because of the way they lived (Matthew 15:3-9). The same type of contrast occurs when we focus so much upon what God has done in Christ for us in the cross and resurrection while holding out no hope for the Holy Spirit to be at work in us in a way that transforms us into the image of Christ.
In Isaiah 1:18-20, Isaiah makes an appeal for repentance and a turn to true obedience. It contains both threat and reassurance. These verses offer what might be termed "conditional reconciliation." 18 Come now, let us argue it out (RSV has “reason together”), as in legal proceedings, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Isaiah's words emphasize the Technicolor depth of the people's sins against God -- they are like "scarlet" and "crimson." However, so great is the Lord's power of forgiveness, God can yet wash their iniquities away so that they are once again white like "snow" or "wool." All the pomp and ceremony of the temple's sacrificial system and cultic rites are helpless before such a devastating stain that colors the people's souls. The faithful city has become a whore. Thus, the presence of this gathered assembly evokes the prophet's sharp words. Yet despite the greatness of their guilt, the grace of God can still offer them forgiveness. Isaiah presents his listeners with a choice. One can see Deuteronomy 30:15-20 within its context. One might also look at Psalm 1 and Psalm 24:3-6. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Several New Testament passages call for choosing between light and darkness, life and death, and so on, combined with pointing out the contrasting the results.
Worship can be such a contentious area of church life. It says so much about who we are. Are you High Church or Low Church? Do you speak in tongues? Do you use an organ or guitars and drums? For some, fitting and proper worship is singing music from a certain era. For others, it is the freedom of raising one’s hands. For some, it means much spontaneity in worship. For the Orthodox Church, it means following the St. John Chrysostom liturgy, developed in 500’s AD. No matter how clean and pure we think our worship is, God has a test for true worship. If we fail the test, what I find challenging is that God does find some types of worship so disgusting that God will not listen. If we do not seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, or plead the cause of the widow, we need to wash ourselves; we need to cleanse ourselves. Of course, we could extend Isaiah’s list. Persons today die because of AIDS. People abuse their freedom by choosing to end the life growing in the womb. Divorce rates climb. Many children in our community receive such a poor start in their lives.
To what extent has our religious observance become mere ritual, and without spiritual content? Answer that question and you might have an idea of whether God is pleased with the religious life of Christians in America these days. Is God happy with the way politics has extended its talons into the flesh of the religiously observant, making them captives of political ideologies that do little to lift the poor and downtrodden? God finds this to be “a burden.” God can no longer “endure” this falderol and is completely “weary” of it all. Is God happy with the sectarian spirit of our day? Does it not grieve the heart of God to see that brothers and sisters can no longer dwell in unity (see Psalm 133:1), or live without “selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better” than themselves? (Philippians 2:3).
Three things must happen, and if they do not, we cannot consider ourselves clean, righteous, pure or holy.
Stop doing dreadful things. “Cease to do evil,” God says. To stop doing something that is habitual takes discipline and will. Unfortunately, the terrible things we do are often bad habits. Perhaps this is why Isaiah rewords this imperative, changing it from “cease” to “remove” — as though evil existed with us as a putrid, cancerous tumor that, for the sake of the patient, had to be removed, as in surgery. Excised. Cut out. Hacked and chopped. “Remove the evil of your doings before my eyes,” God says (v. 16).
Start doing good things. “Learn to do good,” God continues. To learn requires a teachable spirit, the willingness to receive an education. To do good, the Bible seems to suggest, means that we may need to learn how to do it.
As the slaves picked cotton out in the master’s fields on a Sunday morning, they overheard the master and his family, joined with their friends in church, singing hymns. They could overhear, out in the fields, the preacher preaching and the congregation praying. One of the slaves began to sing, “Everybody talking about heaven ain’t necessarily going there.” The others picked up the refrain. Not all talk about heaven ends us up in heaven. It takes more than talk. When there is a dramatic disjunction between the way we talk and the way we walk, something has gone seriously wrong.
The test of worship is ethics. Bad deeds can silence the most eloquent of religious words. The test for what we do Sunday morning is what we do out there Monday through Saturday.
Chances are, no matter how religious or irreligious a person's upbringing, most will acknowledge that they have seen this painting. William Holman Hunt's "The Light of the World" has illustrated American evangelicalism since the artist completed it in 1853. This is the classic picture of a graciously robed Jesus, standing in a garden, gently reaching out to knock on a closed wooden door. It is getting dark. Jesus carries a lantern, while stars start to twinkle in a blue-black sky. Notice the door. Jesus is standing before a door partially covered with tendrils of creeping ivy. Notice the hinges. The door's iron hardware and nails are rusty. The person has not opened the door in some time. Hunt painted doctrines, not pictures. Revelation 3:30 summarizes the doctrine Hunt portrays so successfully, "Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me." Hunt's portrait met with immediate and enormous popularity. One author commented, “What Bach did for Protestant music, that Hunt has done for Protestant painting."[12] Keble College in Oxford exhibits this painting today. Some have called it "the single most important contemporary portrayal of Christ" in the 19th century. Like all good icons, Hunt's "Light of the World" painting soon found itself reproduced in stained glass, gilt-framed in small church chapels, pasted inside prayer cards. This portrayal of Jesus became a part of popular culture, inspiring hosts of hymns about Jesus "coming into my heart."
Hunt painted that closed door as a symbol of a "closed mind" that needed to be opened to the redemptive message of Jesus. The message is clear: Jesus wants to come into our hearts. Nevertheless, I wonder if we could interpret the painting in a unique way for today. Jesus wants in so that he can bring us out. Jesus is calling for us to "Come out, come out, wherever we are."
A fresh look at Holman Hunt's painting suggests Jesus knocking on a door -- gently urging those shut up within to open and let him come inside. However, Jesus is not only knocking on the door to our hearts. Another text says that Jesus is the door. He is the way out of the closed-up, interior-focused, self-absorbed lives we lead. We do not invite Jesus into our hearts simply to have him hang around our lives as a houseguest. As much as I hope we have that type of familiarity with Jesus, we do not sit comfortably behind the door for the rest of our lives. He makes it possible for us to walk outside ourselves, walk outside the protective walls we have built around ourselves. He invites us to step out into a world that needs the message of compassion and redemption that Jesus has given to us. In other words, Jesus comes in to get us out.
"Let me in," Jesus says, knocking on your soul. Then Jesus says, "I am the Door, the way out from whatever is trapping you inside. Follow me and come on out." Jesus says to us, as he said to Lazarus long ago, "Come out." Come out from the seclusion of bitterness to risk forgiving those who have hurt you. Come out from the seclusion of elitism that pulls away from those who do not agree with you. Come out from the seclusion of fear that keeps you from trying anything new. Come out from the seclusion of self that keeps you from seeing the needs of others.
"Come out; come out, wherever you are." Bring healing, liberation, and guidance into a world that desperately needs it. "I am the Door ... an open door, which no one is able to shut."
True worship moves us beyond ourselves. We stop thinking about what satisfies us, and start thinking about what satisfies God. Interestingly, the test God provides for worship is not so much what happens inside the building where we worship, but what happens outside the building.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8] Different possibilities exist for resolving this dilemma. I have settled upon what I state in this paragraph. Some would say that there is an historical and/or intra-biblical conflict between emphases of prophet and priest. Others would say that it was only during the Exile (after the period of many prophets) that the biblical materials authorizing/mandating certain religious observances took final shape.
[9] The trick among the dishonest is to offer sacrifices that are not needed, or not possible, to avoid making those that are required. – Ivan Goncharov
[10] It begins with knowing Lady Macbeth. In the play Macbeth, Lady Macbeth has conspired with her husband to commit murder. Throughout the play, Shakespeare offers psychological insights about guilt that remain powerful for us today. She awakens during the night. In Act V, Scene 1, Lady Macbeth becomes wracked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. In a famous scene, she sleepwalks and tries to wash imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows.
Doctor
What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus
washing her hands: I have known her continue in
this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH
Yet here's a spot.
Doctor
Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from
her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor
Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'
that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with
this starting.
[11] Baker, Jennifer. “Why do the right thing?” Psychology Today, August 28, 2015, psychologytoday.com. Retrieved January 11, 2019.
[12] P. T. Forsythe, Religion in Recent Art ([London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1905], 154).
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