This is a sermon I wrote a few weeks ago. The text that I used was Isaiah 58:1-9a
Our scriptures today challenge us with one question: are the rituals that we do in worship and/or outside of worship the only thing that God desires of us? We come to church each sunday, put money in the offering plate, join in the prayer time and listen to the sermon intently have we done enough. Have we lived into our faith? The answer that I receive from this passage in Isaiah is no, we have not done enough and I am not doing enough. It is this answer that pushes me further in the work that I do towards social justice; the work of standing with those who have been imprisoned, those who are seen as illegal and criminal in the eyes of our society, because they came to this country to support their families without documents and those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer; and are ridiculed not only by our society but more devastatingly by our churches.
I have not always done this type of work; I have not always seen the connection between my faith and justice. When I was growing up I went to a Methodist church in our community and learned all about the love of God and through this love I would be saved. I learned that I was to pray and read my bible in order be closer to God and learn more about who God is. Through the scriptures I discovered a God who was with me during bad times and a God who promised that one day all suffering would end. Over the last few years at Iliff, my faith has stayed the same and changed.
Earlier this year I was reflecting on how my faith had changed. I wrote a blog post one night about the pain that I went through as my view of God changed and the joy of discovering something new. Within that entry I wrote:
I’m realizing that the sacred is no longer in the church just in the church for me. The sacred is out on the streets. Its out where people are fighting against systems, groups, individuals, ideologies which are oppressive, unjust, and hateful. The sacred to me is in community actions, that do not say one day, one day God will make all of your pain go away, but they say today, today we will act with you to fight against those who cause pain. The sacred is in realizing that this world is messed up and that power is an ugly thing when it is used to abuse rather than to empower. No I don’t think that God cares if we sing songs of worship to her. I think that God cares or I think that the sacredness of the humanity in all of us cares if we join together, not only in worship but in action.
The change in my faith has been influenced by many things. At Iliff I have learned that my race, my sexual orientation, and my physical capabilities were involved in oppressing others. I learned that because I am heterosexual, along with the powerful voices of the population, those who are gay, lesbian, transgendered and queer are stigmatized. Hearing the stories of real people – hearing their names – caused me to feel guilt. Because of this I have become a part of some movements in Denver that work against the oppression of immigrants and speak out against the oppression of those who identify as gbltq. Through my education and my work I continue to see how my faith and justice connect together. Another recent influence is a woman by the name of Mab Segrest. Mab is a white, lesbian woman who did activist work against the Klan in the 70s and 80s. Later in her life she learned the south african word ubuntu, which means belonging. Essentially it is the idea that all being belong in this world. This idea of belonging pushes me even further to do social justice work, because it is not just about me as an individual, but it is about all of creation. I believe that all beings belong and should be able to live free of oppression.
The Israelites did not hold to this idea of belonging, for they were the chosen people of God and thus focused on their well being. At the beginning of our passage they are calling out to God and asking why they have not heard from God. They had done everything God had asked. They had fasted in the correct way. In their eyes they believed that God should be pleased with this and that they should be blessed because of the religious rituals that they did. but God looked at it a different way. In verse 3b God says “behold in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers.” God cannot disconnect the oppressive actions of people in their communities with their faith. The Israelites were showing their obedience and love to God, but they were not loving their neighbor. We cannot separate the love that we have for God with the love that we have for others. If we believe that God resides in each of us and in every living thing, then our treatment of them should reflect how we would treat God. Our treatment of them should honor the sacredness of their being. Think about what Jesus writes in Matthew 25:45 he tells us that whatever we did not do to one of the least of these we did not do for him.
Who in our communities are the least of these and who do we oppress all while we are praying and worshiping God? If any of you have been downtown on a saturday lately you may have seen or heard crowds of upwards of 4,000 people chanting “we are the 99%.” The Occupy movement has sprung up across the country. Although I do not understand, because it is not always clear, what the demands and reasons for protesting are; the 99% and 1% remind us that there are both privileged and oppressed in our country. The fact that 1% earned – and the bottom 20% earned blank shows that not all people in our country have the same opportunities. In the youth Sunday School last Sunday we talked about the occupy movement and what it was all about. I explained what the 99% meant. During our discussion one of our youth pointed out that even though there is poverty in this country in a lot of other countries the people living there don’t even have as much money as those in the 99% in this country. It was an insightful observation that highlighted the inequality of the wealth distribution in our world.
Another community that is among the oppressed are those who identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and/or queer. At a recent reconciling event I shared part of my story with the group gathered. I told them how when I first started going to church as an 8th grader I learned that being gay was a sin; it was not what God wanted. I shared that I was a viglent defender of this ideological view. When I began to study the scriptures, however, and began to truly get to know people who identified as glbtq, I realized that they were loved and created by God and that nothing about their lifestyle of sinful. Looking back on my younger years in the church I become frustrated. I become angry at the church for teaching me how to be hateful towards a group of people. Today people in our churches continue to teach these hateful beliefs and that translates into bullying at schools and suicides around the country.
Is God still pleased with us, when come to worship and yet there is this type of violence going on; this type of hatred; this type of greed and hunger? What does God require of us? To serve the least of these? To do more than just worship her, but love the people and the creation that she loves and to show our love through action. But this type of love may require us to give something up. Fasting is essentially giving up something, like food or whatever else in this world distracts us from connecting with the sacred. If true fasting is to help those who are oppressed, then it will require us to give something up.
I was at a general assembly for occupy denver a few weeks ago. Within these general assemblies people a part of the movement gather to make decisions. This particular night was a cold one, with snow expected to blanket the ground. A gentlemen stepped up and told the crowd that there were people here who did not have a home and that they would be thinking about everyone else as they went back to whatever type of home they had to sleep inside, eluding the cold. The gentlemen then asked if anyone had a home that they or others could sleep in. There were no replies, including from yours truly. What does it say about us, our faith, when we do not step up to provide shelter when someone asks or to seek other ways, if not our own home to provide shelter?
The gentleman’s question highlights the fact that we may have to give something up inorder to do justice and to serve the least of these. We have to give up some of our privileges and our lifestyles inorder to do this. What would it look like if all the resources were not hoarded by the 1% or even more, but where used to feed, clothe, shelter all people. Would that be a way of honoring the sacred in all people and a way to live into the call that God gives through Isaiah? Would this be a more genuine worship of God, then just coming to sing songs and pray?
I think that the answer is we need both. Rituals are a way that we experience the sacred a way that we take care of ourselves. But God wants more. God wants us to take care of each other. Perhaps it would look like joining the people on the streets shouting back against a system that creates the possibility for both the poor and rich to exist. Maybe it would look like going to a vigil outside the immigration detention center, to stand against the criminalization of human beings and the tearing a part of family members. Or maybe it would look like cooking a meal for the youth who participate in the mosaic choir each week at Christ Church. It could also look like individuals taking the time to go and meet those who are a part of the 20%, those who live on the streets, those we often pass by everyday.
Whatever way we choose to act, we must choose to. Cause God doesn’t just want to hear our songs of praise or our prayers for those suffering. God wants us to take our faith and our love and put it into action, she wants us to live into the command of truly loving our neighbors and recognizing that we all belong. By doing this perhaps our world can be transformed and we will no longer have the 99% and the 1%, we will no longer how people persecuted for who they love and their gender identities, but we will overcome the oppression and the sacred will be honored in each of us.
~ carissa
