Tag: sin

Learn To Do Right (Isaiah 1:1-4, 16-20)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Statue of Isaiah the Prophet, by Salvatore Revelli (1816-1859), Rome, Italy

The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!
    For the Lord has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
    but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its master,
    the donkey its owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
    my people do not understand.”

Woe to the sinful nation,
    a people whose guilt is great,
a brood of evildoers,
    children given to corruption!
They have forsaken the Lord;
    they have spurned the Holy One of Israel
    and turned their backs on him…

Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
    stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
    you will eat the good things of the land;
but if you resist and rebel,
    you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (New International Version)

Whenever the prophet has a vision, everyone better perk up and take notice.

After the northern Jewish kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E., they lost their national identity. The southern Jewish kingdom of Judah, and its capitol Jerusalem, continued to exist for nearly a century and a half – even though they were vassals of either the Assyrians or the Babylonians.

Yet, Judah still functioned as its own nation in a semi-independent state. It was during this time that the prophet Isaiah had his vision, under the kingship of those descended from King David.

The Prophet Isaiah, by Marc Chagall,1968

The initial section of Isaiah’s prophecy is a series of oracles that establish the relationship between God and the nation of Judah, especially Jerusalem. The gist of God’s message is that the people are guilty of lots of sins.

However, the Lord left a gracious opening for them; their fate was not yet sealed. The nation could repent of their sins and experience a future restoration. God wanted to bring a resolution, and not have the people keep going in their unhealthy ways.

Throughout Isaiah’s vision, God is presented as a Father, with the children being Israel (both northern and southern kingdoms). And Father God has a complaint against them. The people’s principal sins were rebellion and ignorance. They spurned God’s authority, and did not accept their family intimacy with God.

Thus, the Lord is quite disappointed with the people. Heavenly witnesses are called to hear the charges of wrongdoing. The troubles of the nation were to be interpreted as warnings and disciplines, meant to lead them to stop and do right. Yet it seems that the warnings go unheeded by the people. It appears that God’s efforts to woo the people back are in vain.

Although the people’s continued sacrificial worship is merely done as a mere perfunctory act, and without true hearts of devotion for what is just and right, God offered them a chance to make things right, so that they could do justice and embrace righteousness.

God made it clear what it would take to repent: learn to do good; seek justice; recuse the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. God even issued an invitation for a divine/human dialogue to happen.

Grace and cleansing from sin are possible, that is, if the people are willing and obedient, instead of remaining rebellious and refusing to do what is right, just, and good.

The nation was at a crossroads and had to make a decision. Would they choose wisely or foolishly?

Decision-making is critical. Some choices are harder than others. Yet the ability to decide is a God-given gift and ability.

Making decisions is fraught with consequences; we may try to anticipate or ignore what might happen with a particular choice. And how we go about decision-making is important. Who do we listen to? What information do we need? How will this choice shake out in the end?

Intentions are not choices, but are simply a mental resolve to do or not do something, at some point. And to not make a decision is to have already made a decision to either procrastinate or not do anything at all.

There are also decisions of duty. This may or may not be admirable. There is also the choice of attitude and energy given to the decision – because a choice of doing one’s duty can be done with joy or grumpiness, excitement or bitterness, with a bright disposition or a flat sullen affect.

It’s not really hard to guess or assess the choices of the people in Judah and Jerusalem in Isaiah’s day. They were doing an outward duty of temple worship, but without any heart to it.

Many of the people looked upon their duty as a sort of magical talisman that would ward off any trouble or army invasion. With that kind of approach, the people looked upon the rest of their time as their own, as discretionary, as the choice to do whatever they wanted to do.

If their business practices were dubious and not quite right, then big deal. After all, they give their money at the temple.

If the leaders played favorites and overlooked the needy person among them, then so what? The poor and oppressed can work harder, right?

And if orphans and widows – who were the most vulnerable persons in society – were not completely cared for, then that’s sad, but too bad for them.

I can picture an ancient city council saying something like, “We have a lot on our plate, dealing with foreign powers, the economy, and political issues. Those needy persons need to get a clue. It’s their own fault for hanging around and not leaving the city for greener pastures. Not our problem.”

Oh, but it very much was their problem. It was everyone’s problem, and each person’s responsibility, to ensure that God’s justice, goodness, and righteousness was infused throughout the entire city and nation.

Hence, the reason for the book of Isaiah. Tackle the moral and ethical problems head on before it’s too late and the gravity of judgment presses everyone out of the land.

What’s needed is a willing heart inclined to walk into divine obedience, without any talkback, and without any negotiations or deals.

God is merciful, and is willing to talk it out. But justice must be done. Needs must be met. People must be cared for. The Lord’s will must be done, here on earth, as it is always done in heaven. Is this what you are about, or not? Will you learn to do right?

Most merciful God, shine the light of your gracious love upon my cold hard heart. Enlighten my mind and dispel the darkness; speak the truth and help me obey; and have pity upon me. Forgive me yet again of my offenses, transgressions, and guilty acts. Grant me the grace to serve you with faithfulness and care for your people with love and purity, today and always. Amen.

The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Tower of Babel, by Hendrick van Cleve III (1525–1589)

At one time, the whole Earth spoke the same language. It so happened that as they moved out of the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled down.

They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and fire them well.” They used brick for stone and tar for mortar.

Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”

God came down to look over the city and the tower those people had built.

God took one look and said, “One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they’ll come up with next—they’ll stop at nothing! Come, we’ll go down and garble their speech so they won’t understand each other.” Then God scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city. That’s how it came to be called Babel, because there God turned their language into “babble.” From there God scattered them all over the world. (The Message)

At first glance, the Bible reader may wonder what the big deal is about people coming together to build a tower.

A mere cursory look at the text might seem as if God is having some sort of divine anal-retentive moment of control. After all, the people are just trying to get some work done; it’s not like they’re going to somehow invade God’s privacy with a very tall tower.

But that’s not what was going on, way back there several millennia ago. Something more subversive was afoot, and the Lord was completely savvy to what was happening.

The previous chapter (Genesis 10) presents a rather orderly spread of the burgeoning humanity across the earth – which is consistent with God’s original blessing and mandate at the creation of people:

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
    for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.” (Genesis 1:28, MSG)

Yet, here in Genesis 11, people have intentionally stopped discovering the earth. It appears they are more curious about heaven. So, they amassed themselves together and decided to move vertically rather than horizontally across the world.

There seems to have been a great deal of human ambition that was eyeing an assault and takeover of the divine realm, instead of busying themselves with their God-given human realm. Another way of putting it is that they were irresponsible – not caring for creation – but more concerned about having some leverage on God.

Ambition, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad; it’s where that ambition is aimed. And the early people were directing their sights up rather than out – trusting in their human ingenuity and technological abilities to achieve autonomy for themselves.

Because God created humans in the divine image and likeness, people were (and still are!) amazing creatures who can accomplish incredible feats of achievement in whatever they set their minds and hearts to do. Yet, in the case of constructing a tower (or ziggurat) humanity was ignoring their mandate to care about the earth and its inhabitants. Instead, they were working their own will to build a name for themselves, apart from God.

So, the Lord stepped in by confusing their common language so that they would have difficulty communicating with one another. On the surface, it might seem that God was being capricious. But examining just a bit deeper, we can observe what would happen if people threw off their responsibility to the planet and all of its creatures.

The entire world could be subject to terrible inattention. Much like a backyard garden that becomes overrun with weeds due to neglect, the whole earth was in jeopardy of falling into a system of evil that would care nothing for its abundant life and intricate ecosystems. In short, the earth could be ruined.

If this sounds eerily like what we humans are doing today, its probably because that is precisely what we are doing – putting a collective stiff-arm to God and doing whatever the heck we want in exploiting the earth for our own human purposes.

Never mind that entire species of fish and animals, along with flora and fauna and forests and wetlands and grasslands are being harmed and destroyed by so called human ingenuity and technological advance.

It is our own arrogant pride and hubris of abject selfishness, in setting up ourselves as masters of the universe, that brings us to the edge of an environmental holocaust – not to mention fighting amongst ourselves about who will be in charge and in control of it all. We’ll engage in wars and atrocities if that’s what it will take.

Therefore, the Tower of Babel is a symbol of all that is wrong – not right – with humanity. Until we can unlearn our ancient ways of arrogance and injustice, ignorance and lack of awareness, and recover even older ways of caring for one another and the earth, then we will find ourselves being broken by the divine gravity of judgment which exists whenever people choose to defy the order of the world.

In many ways, primeval history remains alive in our daily current events. Yet, it can change. But it will take a heavy dose of humility and confession of guilt to begin undoing the harm we have imposed on others and on our world. And it will take a return to Eden, to the responsibility of creation care, and of healthy relational connections with both other people and God.

Every one of us is culpable – whether we have been directly involved in systemic evil, or not. We all have participated in and benefited from our privilege as human beings living on this planet – sometimes to the extent of turning a blind eye to the great needs of the earth and its inhabitants.

So, what will you do about it? Who will you turn to? Where does your ultimate trust rest? Are you willing to work for good, to be merciful, just, kind, and loving in a pursuit of right relationships with God, others, and the earth?

Sovereign Lord and Creator, renew our spirits and cleanse our hearts. Renew our minds and transform our lives. Renew our cities and rebuild our ruins. Renew our world, in your name we pray, Amen.

Pentecost (John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Holy Spirit, by He Qi

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning…

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. 

“And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (New Revised Standard Version)

Pentecost, by John August Swanson (1938-2021)

This is the Christian Day of Pentecost. It is often referred to as the birthday of the Church. Pentecost marks the time when the Holy Spirit came upon the fledgling believers in power. 

Pentecost is significant for Christians because it marks the age of the Spirit, the era of new spiritual life and power. Ten days after recognizing Christ’s Ascension, and fifty days after Christ’s resurrection from death, the Christian Year observes the Day of Pentecost (which literally means “fifty” in Greek). 

An implication of Pentecost is that it brings both change and stability, of being uprooted as well as deeply grounded. To experience Pentecost, it is necessary to invite change and to allow ourselves to be changed.

To live a truly spiritual life, full of the Holy Spirit, means that things will never be the same again. With the Spirit, there is a new form of consciousness, an emerging awareness of both self and the world, and new interests and commitments which are followed.

Change involves unlearning old thinking and ways of doing things, becoming uprooted and planted in fresh spiritual soil. The spiritual person will discover new, necessary, and expansive ways of living the faith of Jesus Christ in today’s topsy-turvy world.

Today’s Gospel lesson has Jesus talking to his disciples for the last time before his crucifixion and resurrection. He communicated to them that he was going away, and they were sad and confused about it all. So, Jesus assured them that they would not be alone – his presence would be with them in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus made it plain that the One who is coming, the Paraclete, is the One who comes alongside and offers to the disciples a ministry of advocating, testifying, speaking truth, glorifying, and proving the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.

The Spirit advocates for us and all creation. The Spirit hears our pain, moaning, and desperation, bringing it all to God in helpful language (Romans 8:26). The Spirit testifies about Jesus to us and about his ministry. The Spirit speaks truth to us whenever we go astray from the words and ways of Jesus; and so, will challenge us and provoke us to live into our majesty as people created in God’s image and redeemed by Christ’s death and resurrection.

If and when our Christian life and worship becomes a ho-hum hodge-podge of ritualistic or legalistic goo, where no spiritual growth or life transformation is happening – and worse, if it becomes characterized by injustice – then the Spirit will have something to say in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment.

A lack of faith can take many forms. For many Christians, the separation between belief and practice is a form of apostasy. Signing off on a set of doctrinal beliefs means nothing unless it has feet and hands to it by going after those who are suffering, giving restitution for what we’ve taken, and putting the love of Christ where love is not found.

A confession of faith is hollow and useless without first having a confession of sin. Jesus did not say that people will know Christians by their doctrinal confessions and ancient creeds, but that others will know the Christian by the fruit of a life given to righteousness and justice. (Matthew 7:16)

The worldly ruler is the one who perpetuates systems of evil and oppression; and ignores poverty, hunger, and need. The ruler of this world is condemned by the Spirit because of meanness, brutality, violence, and abject greed and selfishness.

Anyone who turns the life-giving good world which God has made into a death-dealing world of ignorance, sloth, and power politics is under the judgment of the Spirit, on orders by Judge Jesus. Whenever the bent of the will is developed into only being concerned with personal happiness, while ignoring communal needs, the person is existing far from the teachings of Jesus to his disciples.

On this Day of Pentecost, and into this proper Pentecostal season, our call is to have a genuine spiritual life that allows the true self to make a difference in this old fallen world. The spiritual person seeks to tap into the Spirit and insist on caring for others without prejudice or favoritism; and will ground themselves in healthy spiritual dynamics of positive change and transformation as living sacrifices to God. (Romans 12:1-3)

With the reality of Pentecost, believers in Jesus, and the whole Church everywhere, has the full power of the Holy Spirit with them at all times. This means our ultimate trust is not in the power of authoritative positions, economic budgets, polished programs, personal ingenuity, or a consumer self-realization.

Our trust is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth, in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, and in the strength of the Holy Spirit who is the continuing presence of Jesus. Such power is given for a purpose. So let us be responsible and conscientious in living the Christian life.

And may the blessing of the Spirit move you to know Jesus better, love the world more, and be the person you were created to be – to the glory of God. Amen.

A Prayer of Confession (Ezra 9:5-15)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Ezra In Prayer, by Gustave Doré, 1866

Then, at the evening sacrifice, I rose from my self-abasement, with my tunic and cloak torn, and fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my Godand prayed:

“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.

“But now, for a brief moment, the Lord our God has been gracious in leaving us a remnant and giving us a firm place in his sanctuary, and so our God gives light to our eyes and a little relief in our bondage. Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kings of Persia: He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

“But now, our God, what can we say after this? For we have forsaken the commands you gave through your servants the prophets when you said: ‘The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other. Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it to your children as an everlasting inheritance.’

“What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins deserved and have given us a remnant like this. Shall we then break your commands again and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Would you not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor? Lord, the God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.” (New International Version)

God had made a covenant with the Israelites. The Lord graciously gave them laws and stipulations to live by before entering the Promised Land.

Yet, much of Jewish history during the times of the kings was characterized by a breakdown in morality. Cheating on workers and preying upon the weak became commonplace. The poor were fleeced for what little they had, and reduced to servitude.

Failing to obey God completely, the people intermarried with the surrounding nations. The worship of Yahweh was, at times, in severe neglect, due to worshiping the gods of other places. As a result, divine judgment brought a Babylonian captivity and an exile of the people to a foreign land.

But God, who is rich in mercy, brought many of the people back to Palestine and Jerusalem. The Babylonians were conquered by the Persians, who had a different philosophy about how to handle the nations within their empire. And they were open to Jerusalem being rebuilt and the temple restored.

Ezra was a scribe (a copier of Scripture) and one of the returning exiles. Ezra left Babylon in 458 B.C.E. with a considerable group of people. Because of Ezra’s position as a Jewish scribe, and as a descendant of Levi, the Persian king authorized him to reinforce the Torah (the Law) by reading it and setting up the necessary administrative systems to ensure it would be followed.

Under Persian rule, each subject people was allowed to live by its ancestral laws, which were enforced by the imperial government. Violations of the laws of the group to which one belonged constituted an offense against the state precisely because they led to instability.

Soon after Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, he learned of the spiritual state of the Jews there. They had intermarried freely with the non-Jewish women of the land, and had ceased to keep the Jewish holidays and other commandments.

This situation devastated Ezra. He tore his clothes and sat in mourning the entire day until evening. After the evening sacrifice was brought, he got up and began praying loudly to God, weeping for forgiveness for the sins of his people.

Ezra read the Torah publicly to the entire people. Indeed, this was a covenant‑renewal ceremony in the strict sense. To make the Torah understandable to them, he had it explained, because Hebrew was no longer in most people’s vernacular. (Nehemiah 8:1-18)

In today’s Old Testament lesson, we have Ezra’s prayer, his great confession of sin, and concern that the people not get into the same situation which brought God’s judgment and exile upon them to begin with.

It is a prayer laced with love for the covenant code, the Jewish people, and most of all, for God. A very complicated situation prompted Ezra’s prayer, and would take much courage and wisdom to confront and deal with.

Whenever things are awry, circumstances are less than desirable, and situations seem overwhelming, the place to begin is to pray. Admittedly, prayer is not everything; but it is certainly something – and something powerful – for which we have both the duty and the delight to engage in.

And in praying, there is perhaps no better way to begin, than with a heartfelt prayer of confession:

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.

Set us free from a past we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.