Sermon -- 25th Sunday after Pentecost (November 19, 2023)

ISAIAH 1:10-20

WORSHIP GOES BEYOND THESE WALLS.

In the name + of Jesus.

     When the Lord’s anger is aroused, he does not mince words.  That is especially evident when he calls his people Sodom and Gomorrah.  This is what the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah: “Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!  Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah” (Isaiah 1:10)!  The Lord is slow to anger, but his anger does flare up.  The Lord is patient, but his patience has its limits.  One of the reasons God was so harsh with Israel is because he had given them so much.  The Lord had claimed them as his own.  He instructed them how they were to worship him.  Through the sacrifices God had prescribed, the Lord bestowed his forgiveness and declared reconciliation.  The Lord pledged to dwell with his people and to bless them.  When they began to wander from the paths of righteousness, the Lord sent them prophets to call them back.  In response to this, Israel turned to their own way and made their worship a mockery of God and his word. 

     It’s not that the sacrifices, the rituals at the temple, and the festival calendars had ceased.  The priests dutifully slaughtered the animals, arranged them on the altar, and turned them to smoke.  It looked like business as usual in the Lord’s temple.  But their hearts and their minds were far from God’s word.  Therefore, the Lord rebuked them.  “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord…  When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?  Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me” (Isaiah 1:11,12-13).  Even though God had commanded these very things, he was enraged at the worship he got from his people.  In God’s house, they followed God’s instructions for worship.  Outside of God’s house, they did not care about the word of the Lord.  Their words were one thing; their actions were the opposite.  Worship was to go beyond the walls of the temple.

     This is a danger for every Christian.  We dutifully come to God’s house.  If this has become somewhat of an empty ritual for you, then it is good to review what we come to God’s house for.  We come to receive God’s forgiveness and his mercy through his word and sacraments.  We come to benefit from Jesus’ work who rescues us from the curse of sin and its punishment.  We come to be preserved by Jesus who conquered death and the devil for us.  We come to find peace in the midst of our struggles, in our stresses, and in our sorrows.  We come so that we will not be swept away by a world which promotes greed, praises lust, and props up ourselves as our own gods.  We come to hear God instruct us for the good we are to do and the evil we are to avoid.  We confess that God’s word is good and right.  All of this is good, but if our confession is limited to these walls and to this hour, what good is it? 

     To confess one thing before God and to confess something completely different in our lives makes us liars.  That is why the Lord said, “New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly” (Isaiah 1:13).  Mixed confessions mock and insult God.  Worship goes beyond these walls.

     While Jesus called people to repent of all their sins, he saved his harshest rebuke for the Pharisees and their hypocrisy.  They Pharisees were determined to appear good before the people so that they could glory in the praise of other people.  They dutifully sat front and center in the synagogues to hear God’s words of blessing and mercy, but outside those walls, their eyes looked on others in judgment.  They scoffed at the sins of others but did not confess any sins of their own.  Their hearts were quick to condemn, and their words lacked mercy.  The Pharisees were unlike the very God they claimed to serve in the synagogues.  Worship was to go beyond those walls.  Jesus rebuked them and later condemned them, because he knows the difference between a true heart and a phony heart. 

     Isaiah called the people of Israel to repent because, even though they claimed to be God’s people, they were not like him in any way.  Isaiah said, “Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause” (Isaiah 1:16-17).  From these words, it sounds like the people of Israel were all criminals.  Some probably were.  But the biggest problem was that those who went to God’s house to seek mercy did not show mercy others who needed it.

     You and I live among many people who are in need of mercy.  They are hurting.  Often, people lash out when they are hurting.  This past summer, there was a lost dog that was running in the street on 9 Mile Road.  He ended up underneath a car which had stopped in the road.  A few of my children and some other people were trying to coax the dog out from under the car.  Everyone wanted to help and to make sure the dog was safe.  The dog, however, was scared and assumed that every helping hand was a threat.  He lashed out at the very people who wanted to show mercy.

     That is how it often happens in our world.  People who are hurting often hurt other people.  If the people they are supposed to trust prove untrustworthy, and if the people who are supposed to love them don’t, why would they think you love them and can be trusted by them?  When people lash out at us, we assume it is because they are jerks.  Some are; but others lash out because they are hurting.  Regardless, they all need mercy.  Yet, we despise these people.  We withhold mercy.  We respond with bitterness and rage, as if that will soften them.  We end up piling up more reasons for people to be angry and bitter.  And while we can convince ourselves that such people deserve to be treated like that, it is not how God has treated us.  And we prove that we are not like the God we worship.  Repent.

     Now, does that make us hypocrites?  The devil will certainly tell you so.  Other people will accuse you of it, too.  And if you insist that you are a godly person when your actions and attitudes are ungodly, then you are a hypocrite just as the Pharisees were.  But you are not a hypocrite if you confess your sins, repent of them, and fight against them.  There is a reason we begin every service with a confession of sins.  We are honest about who we are.  We have sinned.  We are frustrated with ourselves because of our sins.  We are grieved that we have responded to the burdens of others with sharp tongues and cutting words.  We are ashamed that God’s mercy comes down to us in a downpour but that our mercy to others comes in a trickle.  For we know that worship is supposed to go beyond these walls. 

     Nevertheless, there is a comfort in being honest about our sins.  You and I do not have to come before God and try to sell him on anything.  We don’t have to convince God that our sins are not all that bad.  We do not need to lie about the words we have said or pretend that we did not really hurt anyone by them.  We can freely acknowledge our sins because the Lord has given a promise to all who confess their sins.

     The Lord’s promise is this: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  We trust that the Lord is faithful to that promise.  That promise was confirmed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus took our sins from us and died the cursed death in our place.  If Jesus has paid for all sins, then God faithfully forgives all our sins and purifies us from all unrighteousness.  Jesus’ resurrection proves it.  Since Jesus rose from the dead, his payment for sin and its penalty is sufficient.  The Lord has pardoned all our offenses.  And God is just to do so.  Jesus has suffered the punishment for all our sins; it would be unjust to punish them all over again.  Justice has been done; you are acquitted.

     It is just as the Lord declared through the prophet Isaiah: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).  The blood-red stain of sin has been washed out by the innocent blood of Jesus Christ.  Jesus connected that holy, precious blood to the waters of baptism.  Those holy waters present you to God as pure and innocent.  Your baptism makes you a child of God—not just within these walls.  Everywhere you go, you are cloaked in Jesus’ righteousness.  Martin Luther said it this way: “Lord, Jesus Christ: You are my righteousness, I am your sin.  You were made to be what you were not in order to make me to be what I am not.”  This is no pretend righteousness because it is no pretend salvation.  Jesus died to pay for sins.  Jesus rose again to prove that your sin has been taken away.  You are God’s people—both in these walls and outside of them.

     Worship goes beyond these walls.  The blessing God pours upon us here goes with us into the world.  And the mercy we receive here we take with us into the world.  For we love God’s word both when we take it to heart in God’s house and when we put it into practice in the world.  Granted, this is often hard to do.  It is hard to show mercy to people who are rude and spiteful.  It is hard to be generous to people who take with no intention of giving back.  It is hard to avoid obscenities when they are the preferred adjective of so many people.  It is hard to stand firm on God’s moral code when so many have cast off chastity and think you are weird if you don’t.  But if God’s word is good and true and right here, then it is good and right and true wherever we go.  Worship goes beyond these walls.

     And when we our sinful nature gets the better of us, when we fail to show mercy, grow weary being patient with the weaknesses of others, or give into the pressure to go along with wickedness, we flee back to our Lord.  And our Lord continues to be faithful and just.  He pours out his forgiveness, comfort, and strength.  We flee to the altar to receive Holy Communion, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us. 

     When the Lord’s anger is aroused, he does not mince words.  He expresses his anger in clear, frightening terms.  On the other hand, when the Lord demonstrates his mercy, he pours it out generously.  He proclaims his salvation in words so sweet that we never tire of hearing how dearly God loves us.  Our Lord’s constant faithfulness and boundless mercy assure us that we are his people.  Since we are God’s people, we strive to live like our Savior.  We worship in these walls where we receive his good things.  And our worship goes beyond these walls where we bestow God’s goodness upon others.  In this way, our neighbor sees the light of Christ reflected by us, and God is honored.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.