Sermon: "Whose Lives Matter?" (Isaiah 5:1-7)

We start today with chapter one, verse one.

The book of Isaiah begins with these words: “The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

Notice how this first verse mentions the kings who reigned while Isaiah prophesied?

This first verse clearly sets Isaiah’s work in a political context. The connection between Isaiah’s message and the rule of the kings is clear. Imagine if Isaiah were alive and writing this today, and began by saying “The vision of Isaiah which he saw in the days of Clinton, Bush, and Obama.” For Isaiah, it’s clear that religion and politics DO mix.

So, in 60 seconds or less, what do we know about these kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah?

Well, Uzziah built up the economy and the military strength of Judah. Everything was great, especially for the wealthy and the powerful – you know, the people who matter. However, all this greatness went to Uzziah’s head. As the 26^th chapter of 2^nd Chronicles notes, “When he had become strong, he grew proud, to his destruction.”

Eventually Uzziah contracted leprosy and so the kingship was taken over by his son Jotham, who continued his father’s policies. In the meantime, the neighboring nation of Assyria was growing in power, and becoming a threat.

After Jotham came Ahaz. By this time Assyria was gaining control over parts of Judah, and other nations also began posing threats. Ahaz saw Assyria as the lesser of these evils, and made an alliance with Assyria for protection against those other nations.

And finally, Hezekiah. Hezekiah saw Assyria as a danger to Judah, so he made an alliance with Egypt for protection against Assyria. When the king of Assyria – Sennacharib – did invade Judah, even Egypt was unable to stop Assyria, and Assyria gained control over all of Judah.

Isaiah looked at these shifting alliances and believed that the problem was that the kings of Judah had put their trust in human institutions and human rulers, rather than in God. They made alliances with other nations, instead of making an alliance with God.

Proof of this misplaced trust could be seen in how the kings of Judah had ignored God’s instructions to care for the poor and downtrodden. They had neglected to care for them as God had instructed. In their arrogance, they had worked to protect the wealth of the wealthy; they had worked to protect the power of the powerful; but they had ignored the needs of poor and the oppressed.

And when you do that, everyone loses.

Which is exactly what happened when Assyria invaded and took control.

Isaiah had something to say about that. He said that Assyria was a tool that God was using to renovate the house of Judah. Any big renovation begins with a demolition phase, and that’s what the invasion of Assyria was accomplishing. Everything old and bad needed to be got rid of, so that the new house could be built.

“Therefore… God stretched out his hand against [Judah] and struck them… He will raise a signal for a nation far away… Their arrows are sharp, their bows are bent” [5:25]. Assyria was on its way.

Or, to change the analogy: the vineyard that was supposed to produce delicious grapes good for eating or winemaking instead produced nothing good or edible. The only thing to do, then, is to tear it down and start over.

And here’s why:

God expected justice, but saw bloodshed;

God expected righteousness, but heard cries of injustice, cries of despair, cries of suffering at the hands of others.

And those cries always find their way into God’s ears and into God’s heart. God heard the cries of the Hebrews enslaved to Pharaoh years before, and now God heard the cries of the poor and the oppressed in Judah.

Regarding the arrogance of Judah, Isaiah says in chapter 2: “The haughty eyes of people shall be brought low, and the pride of everyone shall be humbled, and the Lord alone will be exalted.”

You know this is important to Isaiah, because he repeats it, almost word-for-word, just a few verses later:

“The haughtiness of people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low; and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.”

And all because of what Isaiah describes in chapter 5: the kings and the people have ignored justice. They have not done what is right. They’ve indulged themselves in parties, drinking from morning to night, while many live in poverty. They have not protected the vulnerable. The wealthy and powerful have taken pride in their wealth and their power, while neglecting the growing poverty and helplessness of so many.

They even boast in this. Isaiah 3: “The look on their faces bears witness against them. They do not hide it. They even tell the innocent how fortunate they are.”

Imagine, a wealthy person telling poor people how fortunate they are, or a free person telling slaves how fortunate they are… Ridiculous, right?

Strangely enough, a few weeks ago Michelle Obama gave a speech in which she mentioned how she wakes up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.

Which led Bill O’Reilly to argue that those slaves were “well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government…” so what’s the big deal?

And that is exactly the kind of privileged, arrogant, racist language that Isaiah so sharply condemns. “They bear witness against themselves when they tell the innocent how fortunate they are.”

We NEED Isaiah’s voice today. We need to hear his words, and listen to his message. Because what’s happening today isn’t so different than what was happening 2700 years ago when he wrote those words.

Today, just like 2700 years ago, there are those who – as Disciples pastor William Barber put it – “say so much about what God says so little, and who say so little about what God says so much.” In other words, there are so many who are silent about things like injustice and inequality and poverty, even though the Bible shows that these are PRIMARY concerns of God; meanwhile, they talk on and on about things that the Bible really says very little on.

William Barber has read Isaiah. You’ve heard of William Barber, right? If you haven’t, go home and google him. Read his speeches. Watch them on youtube. Or call Chalice press and order one of his books.

William Barber has read Isaiah. And Isaiah calls upon us to “pay people what they deserve; share food with the hungry...” and let their cry be heard.

Jesus quoted Isaiah. And Christians have seen Isaiah’s words as foreshadowing Jesus’s ministry. There is a strong connection between the message of Isaiah and the message of Jesus; and the message of Jesus is good news to the poor, the captives, the oppressed, and all those who are made to feel unaccepted.

Basically, what Jesus and Isaiah are saying to the world is, Poor Lives Matter. Broken Lives Matter. Bruised Lives Matter. Oppressed Lives Matter.

They say this, because these are the lives that are being ignored. These are the hearts that are crying out to God.

Meanwhile, those in a position of privilege turn their back on this message. “Why do you say, ‘Poor Lives Matter?’ Why do you say ‘Oppressed Lives Matter?’ ALL lives matter. You shouldn’t single anybody out.”

And yet, they have already been singled out. They have been singled out by a society that refuses to grant them equal rights, equal opportunity, equal freedom.

Isaiah didn’t say, “rescue everyone; defend everyone; plead for everyone.”

Isaiah said, “rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow.” He specifically mentioned those who suffered from the injustices of his society. Society tried to ignore their cries, but Isaiah wouldn’t allow their cries to be silenced.

Today, in Sparta, Georgia – 100 miles from Atlanta – police are being dispatched to the homes of the town’s 180 black residents, to issue a court summons. They are being summoned to court, to prove their residence. If they fail to show up, they lose the right to vote.

None of the town’s white residents have received a summons.

Meanwhile, we are 2½ months away from the first presidential election since the Supreme Court removed the racial protection clause of the voting rights act. The court removed those racial protections, saying that they were no longer necessary since racism doesn’t exist anymore. Yet the removal of those protections is exactly what has allowed actions like those happening in Sparta to take place. Racism clearly does exist. And the people are crying out.

But there is another court, a court even higher than the Supreme Court. And in that courtroom, according to Isaiah, “the Lord rises to argue his case.” In that courtroom, the cry of the people is heard. In that courtroom, the Lord declares: “You elders and princes and people, it is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? [3:14-15].

The Lord presents his case to the people. “Go ahead,” God says; “judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done?”

Even to those who are guilty, the verdict against them is clear.

In the first chapter of Isaiah, God says: “I don’t care about your worship services, your sacrifices, or your proclamations. In fact, if you come before me but have not sought justice, have not defended the poor, the weak, or the oppressed, then it is all offensive to me. I hate it all. I despise it. Instead, learn to do good. Seek justice. Rescue the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow.”

This theme continues all the way to Isaiah 58, where God calls upon the people to “loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free; to share bread with the hungry, to house the homeless poor, to cover those who are naked.”

Do this, God says, and “your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”

That is our calling. And that is why we declare that Black Lives Matter, and Brown Lives Matter. That is why we declare that Queer Lives Matter. That is why we declare that Poor Lives Matter. That is why we declare that Immigrant Lives and Refugee Lives Matter.

Because God hears the cries of the oppressed, and pays particular attention to those cries.

Because Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor and the oppressed.

Because we are called to heal the brokenness of the world, and allow God to work through us in bringing about a kingdom of healing and wholeness.

"Wisdom to Sing" (Psalm 111)

I don’t know why the Bible translations still talk about the “fear of the Lord.” It’s generally recognized by scholars that when the Bible talks about the fear of the Lord, it’s not fear in the sense of “run for your lives.” What it means is awe. Reverence.

But language has a strange way of changing. My seminary professor Joe Jones always said that words have a way of “getting up and walking around.”

For example, the word awful used to mean full of awe. In other words, awful meant the same thing as awesome. But parents would take their children to church and point out things at the cathedral, and say, isn’t this the most awful church? (Meaning, isn’t this just the most awesome church?)

But the kids were bored to death in church (church back then wasn’t nearly as exciting as it is now!), and later, they would say to each other, “Yeah, that was just the most awful church…” And eventually the meaning changed to what it is today, which is just the opposite of what it originally meant, and society had to invent a new word – awesome – to mean what the word awful originally meant.

Anyway, awe and reverence of the Lord – not fear – is the beginning of wisdom.

This Psalm – Psalm 111 – was chosen for the lectionary today because in churches where all four lectionary scriptures are read each Sunday, the psalm follows the Old Testament reading, and the Old Testament reading for today describes the time Solomon prayed for wisdom.

You know that story; God appeared to Solomon and said, “Ask me what I should give you…” And Solomon could have asked for anything: long life, riches, victory over his enemies… But instead, Solomon asked for wisdom. This pleased God so much that God gave Solomon what he asked for, but also gave Solomon what he did not ask for: riches and honor.

So perhaps wisdom is what I should be talking about today, not fear or awe.

This verse in Psalm 111 talks about wisdom, but the psalm as a whole is about praising God. “Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord! He is gracious and merciful…”

It reminds me of Psalm 34: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

But since I started with thoughts of wisdom, now I wonder: is that wise? Is it wise to bless the Lord at all times? Are there times when it’s wise not to praise and bless the Lord?

Whether blessing the Lord at all times is wise or not, it’s certainly not easy.

Israel didn’t feel like blessing the Lord and praising God when it was caught in captivity. Invaded, forcibly removed from its homeland, the people had very little praise in their mouths.

Instead, they found they couldn’t even sing. Psalm 137 shows this: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept. We put away all our musical instruments… How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

They could not sing. They could not praise God. Things had just gotten too bad for that.

I know some people in the church who feel that way today. Remember back in the day when everyone went to church? Now, on Sunday mornings, people go to brunch. They go to soccer games. They sleep in. Nobody goes to church.

And for the few of us who do, come on, you gotta admit: sometimes we think it would be nice to sleep in on a Sunday morning, and then go to brunch, which is really what people who sleep in call breakfast just so they don’t have to admit that they weren’t quite able to eat breakfast at breakfast time because they were still in bed.

Amy Butler – pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City – talked about these things in her sermon at the General Assembly last month. Her scripture was Isaiah 40, and she said she was all ready to talk about how the church has declined, and how we find ourselves in a foreign land, much like the people of Israel, a land that no longer looks like it once did, a land where it is hard to sing the Lord’s song, a land where hope is hard to come by and the future looks bleak.

If that was all she preached on, we would have listened. In the 1960s, the Disciples of Christ had almost two million members; today it’s less than one million, quite a lot less. Churches are closing or facing tough financial decisions (and if you were at last week’s board meeting, you know that we at Bixby Knolls Christian Church are facing our own financial struggles). Indeed, many are finding it hard to sing God’s praises in the face of such a decline.

Amy Butler said she was all ready to talk about these things…they seemed so important… but then…as she put it: “late one Wednesday night…, everything changed.  Breaking news flashed across my phone: nine black people shot, murdered in a Charleston church at the hands of a white supremacist.

She said, “All of a sudden, those hard, hard questions about the relevance of the church stood in stark relief against the raw reality of life in our country these days.

She said, “a month ago the big fear was the dying church.  Then we saw nine people die in church.

She said that “now the question is, perhaps as it should have been all along, no longer whether the church can survive, but more: ‘What is our call and responsibility as God’s people, in this culture of structural racism, injustice, and death?’”

There was wisdom in her words.

This week, I’ve begun reading a brand new book by Leah Francis Gunning called Ferguson and Faith. This week, Sojourners magazine interviewed Leah Francis Gunning about her book, and asked her what church did racial justice well in the year since Ferguson.

She said, “Compton Heights Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Louis.” Now, this is a small congregation, even smaller than Bixby Knolls Christian Church.

According to Leah Francis Gunning, “In the past, they have been involved in outreach activities but not a lot tailored toward racial justice. When Ferguson happened, their pastor got involved in protests, and when she invited the congregation to participate with her, they did so.

“And here’s how: They reimagined what it means to be a safe sanctuary. Often times we think of safe sanctuaries as places where children won’t be harmed and people are appropriately trained. That’s important.

“But they’ve expanded this definition of safe sanctuary to really think about what it means to welcome those who don’t feel welcome. In the movement, they opened their sanctuary doors as places of training, gathering, cooking—and equally important—as places of prayer.

“One of the young activists came to the pastor and said, “Why are your doors opened to us?” Because so many doors had been closed—not just to the protesters, but to young people generally who don’t often feel welcome in our congregations because of who they choose to love or how they choose to wear their clothes.”

I’m glad that Leah Francis Gunning named a Disciples of Christ church. I’m even happier that Compton Heights Christian Church – a small, struggling congregation – has kept singing the Lord’s song, has kept blessing God and blessing the community.

So it doesn’t matter if we have two million people, two hundred people, or two people: we have a song to sing.

And no matter what, praise is a part of that song.

And even when it seems inappropriate to sing a song of praise, we must do so. It is wise to do so. It is necessary.

When we are caught in a foreign land, a bleak landscape, we must sing our song of praise.

When our numbers are down, we must sing our song of praise.

When there is violence in the land, we must sing our song of praise.

And here’s why.

The God we worship is a God who comforts the afflicted, who dries every tear, who – as the psalmist says –  is close to the brokenhearted and heals those whose spirits are crushed.

The God we worship is a God who is gracious and merciful. This description of God is repeated over and over again in scripture: Numbers 14, Nehemiah 9, Psalm 103, Jeremiah 32, Jonah 4…

The God we worship cares more about faithfulness than numbers. During Vacation Bible School, we learned that things once got so bad for Elijah that he believed he was the only faithful one left. Talk about a decline in membership! Elijah looked around, and there was no one else. But with God’s help, Elijah kept doing what he was called to do, and through his faithfulness he came to realize that there were, in fact, others. Not a lot, but more than he had thought.

The God we worship focuses more attention on nine people who were killed in church than on millions who choose to sleep in on Sunday mornings. All people are important to God; but it is those who are being oppressed, terrorized, murdered, and hated who God pays special attention to.

So we can mope and lament all those who no longer attend church in our society… or we can focus our attention on the children who are dying in church, the children who are dying in the streets, dying at the hands of violence, dying because we have forgotten them and the neighborhoods they live in, dying because their skin is the wrong color, dying because their parents can’t afford to protect them, dying because of the sins of a nation.

And we can be silent in the face of a church that is no longer what it once was, or we can sing out loud the Lord’s praises, sing out a song of justice, freedom, and love.

Because that is the Lord’s song, and it is a song that, more than ever, needs to be heard. It is a song to sing in the morning and sing in the evening, all over the land. It is a song of wisdom, and it is wisdom that teaches us to sing.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to sing. God is faithful; God has not abandoned us. God is here, and God is inspiring me to sing. Are you ready to sing? Let’s sing. And let’s praise and bless the Lord at all times, for God is good and God is faithful.