Monday in the First Week of Advent
The assigned reading from the Hebrew Scriptures today is Isaiah 1:10-20. As I read the entire passage this morning, these are the lines that stood out to me, "...cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, Let us reason together, says the Lord..."
Earlier in the passage, the prophet reports God's disgust (I think that's an appropriate summary) with the nature of religious observances of Israel. The entire sacrificial machine was operating at full tilt. All of the appropriate days were being remembered. Liturgies were being celebrated -- no doubt in decency and in order. In fact the religious machine was operating at such a level of efficiency that it no longer even needed an object of worship, because it had become its own god!
The relationship between God and God's people had devolved into little more than a series of superstitious transactions. Offer the right animal at the right time in the right fashion and God would be satisfied. Fastidiously observe the right holy day and all would be well. Appease God with a goat or a bull and then go on living your life -- no change or conversion required. Easy.
The prophet hears God's indictment as a wake-up call to pay attention to those in society who are living at the margins -- the overlooked and under-cared-for. To enter into a relationship with God requires more than a sacrifice purchased from the local sacrifice supplier. A liturgical observance that doesn't lead one to see the world through the lens of God's mercy is liturgy that stands under God's judgment.
Isaiah's oracle reminds me (as the resident liturgical professional) that liturgy isn't an end in itself. Liturgy is the means through which we are pushed -- from the adoration of God around the Holy Table, out into the world -- toward the places and people that make us uncomfortable. I wonder if the place we begin "reasoning with God" isn't in the safe surroundings of our local church at all. I wonder if we only begin talking with God when we begin dialogue with and on behalf of those that our society easily discards or openly disdains.
posted by FrGaryB | 12:11 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks, Gary.
It is significant, i think, that doing liturgy and serving the needy are not mutually exclusive actions. Doing the liturgy is a human action that demonstrates how we depend on God as the source of life and charity; so to then fail to help those in need (those who depend on our help) makes the liturgical act an incoherent activity.
"I wonder if the place we begin "reasoning with God" isn't in the safe surroundings of our local church at all. I wonder if we only begin talking with God when we begin dialogue with and on behalf of those that our society easily discards or openly disdains."
This is a real thought-provoker - thanks for coming back to writing your blog again! I suspect you used terminology like "only" as hyperbole for its thought provoking quality. (it worked!) For me, liturgy and church can be powerful circumstances to commune with the Lord, talk, reason, (argue strenuously?). But then there are those who say I'm odd. [smile] I cycle in between church as comfortable routine and sounding a wake-up call to action/relationship/what-have you. And yet, if it (this business of "reasoning together" with God) restricts itself to church, it would be a superficial and insubstantial type of relationship, contrived and prone to fond self-invention of comfort feelings, even. Yup. Getting outside that comfort zone is probably the preferred way God likes to get our attention and work with us!
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