“You Can't Fool God”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Text: Isaiah 58:1-9
We human beings have a social contract. It is unwritten but it is almost universally practised, namely that we do not always tell the truth. We practise quite openly and sincerely, obfuscation, concealment, avoidance. Even if we know something to be true, we don't express it, even if something is so blatantly obvious before our eyes, we will avoid it and pretend we didn't hear it or see it. In many ways this social contract that we have with one another is designed to protect ourselves from unbridled and unfettered truth. It is a way that we maintain civility amongst ourselves and a way of handling situations that are uncomfortable or difficult.
Other times, however, this social contract is dangerous. It leads to duplicitous behaviour. It can be unseemly: not to tell the truth, but to avoid it. Often, we avoid the truth for fear of hurting ourselves, never mind somebody else. You know, the stark contrast between those who have developed this social contract and those who have yet to develop it occurred just a couple of weeks ago when I was in a food court in front of the coffee shop section.
I was in the line-up for my daily java and at the front of the line was a man who really stood out. It was obvious to everyone that he'd been the victim of Thalidomide. His arms were merely stumps. Right behind me in the line-up was a mother and child. The child saw the man at the front of the line and in a voice that could be heard everywhere through the food court, never mind to the person at the front of the line, he said, “Look, Mummy, that man has no arms!”
The mother wanted a great, big hole to form in the earth that she could fall into. She looked embarrassed. She grabbed him by the arm, and said, “Shoosh!” It was too late! The words were already out. The young boy hadn't really done anything wrong. He had only stated simply, truthfully, what he had seen. He hadn't yet heard of the social contract that you simply don't say those kinds of things. The man at the front of the line continued to purchase his tea. He had been there before.
Those who were serving him knew to reach into his shirt pocket and pull out an envelope that had cash in it. They took the cash and they put the change back in the envelope and they tucked it back in his shirt. The man with the Thalidomide arms then went and took a table and one of the servers brought from his tea with a straw and placed it on the table in front of him, and the man began to drink his tea. All of us felt uncomfortable. We felt for the mother, but the son had simply told the truth. Sometimes the truth just hurts too much.
There is that marvellous line in A Few Good Men where there is the trial of Colonel Jesse9, and Jessed appears before Kaffee, who is interrogating him. Kaffee says those immortal words, “I want you to tell the truth.” And the Colonel looks back at him and says, “You can't handle the truth!” At times, Jessep speaks for us all. We can't handle the truth.
As a way of protecting ourselves from the truth we sometimes turn to religion. We turn to rites of passage. We turn to ceremony and religious practices that act as a smokescreen between the truth and ourselves. People hide behind the religious outward signs in order that they don't have to come face-to-face with the truth about themselves and in the hope that others don't see the truth about themselves. It is really smoke-and-mirrors. Since time memorial, religion and religious practices have been used for that very purpose.
In a marvellous work, Middlemarch, George Eliot tells the story of a man called Bulstrode. He is a very upright citizen. He is a Methodist. He goes to church regularly. He is a holy man. By all outward appearances, he is pious and he is devout. But, there is a dark side to Bulstrode. There is an immoral part to him. There is a judgemental part to him. In condemning Bulstrode, Eliot says: “For all your infinite celebrations, it does not alter your bad manners. For all your love of the celestial heights, it does not alter your bad manners.” He has been trying to hide behind propriety, behind respectability by being very religious, but in his religion, finally he could not hide any longer.
Often religion is used to smokescreen the truth about ourselves. Nowhere is that more poignant than in our passage this morning from the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah was struggling with the people who were using religion as a smokescreen for avoiding the truth about themselves and about their relationships. It is a fascinating passage, because it shows what a false attempt of pleasing God can look like.
The people are probably living and returning after the exile. They are returning to an Israel that has no foundations and is in chaos. People are returning to their land, but they brought with them some of their practices they maintained while they were in exile. One of them was fasting.
Fasting is a good thing. It celebrates the destruction of the temple in Yev in Egypt, and remembers that the people must always be contrite and confess their sins. Fasting is a good thing. Moses, before he received the Ten Commandments on Sinai fasted in order that he might become one with the will of God. In other words, fasting is prayer, fasting is preparing yourself for God to do something great.
But, as Walter Bruggeman, the great Old Testament scholar, says, “The problem is that this cult of fasting has become an end in itself.” People thought that if they fasted they could somehow please God. More than that, they felt that they could in fact fool God by fasting, and then not live a righteous life. They thought that if they had all the outward appearances of piety, God would be impressed with their activities, and be fooled.
The only problem is that God wasn't listening to them. With all their fasting, still there were terrible things going on. In Verse 3 of 58, this is what the writer says, “Why have we fasted and you do not meet our needs? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of us?” In other words, “God, we have done everything you want. We have fasted. We have been religious. We have kept the cult, but still you are not answering our prayers. You are not listening to us.”
I love a comment that was made by Nicky Gumbel, and those of you who are studying Alpha will readily know that name. Nicky is a wonderful leader from London, England. He says, “God will pay no heed to the prayer that is offered by a student in a test that goes as follows: 'Dear Lord, I pray for you honestly that Paris becomes the capital of England.'” In other words, you can pray all you want, put on all your piety but you cannot fool God.
No matter how much you ask for something, no matter how religious you might appear on the surface, if your heart is not with truth, it will find you out. That was part of the problem, was it not, for the people of Israel after they returned from exile. God was not listening to them because they had made their fasting an end in itself. It was a smokescreen rather than the truth.
But there was a way out. Isaiah isn't a negative prophet. He might look at something that the people are doing wrong, but he does give them a way forward. Just like Micah, just like Jeremiah, just like Hosea, he understood that true righteousness is in the heart. True righteousness is not in the outward appearances or in the ordinances that are set by religion, but is borne in the soul, just like Jesus. In Matthew 25, when Jesus says, “In the end, it is not whether you have given all these fasts, or all these gifts to me; it is the way you have treated the least among you.” In other words, it is your compassion. It is what is in your heart that matters.
The problem is that fasting, and Isaiah observed this, had become a smokescreen for avoiding the truth about what was in the peoples' hearts. So much so, that they fasted, but then did as they pleased. They practised their religion, but they were unrighteous. They had the outward form of their faith, but they were unjust towards their neighbours. He even goes so far as to say that fighting would break out during this fasting.
I have often wondered why that is. I have a theory. I think it is called “Low Blood Sugar.” That is what it is! But whatever it is, they fought one another, they got ornery and mean with one another. That is not the purpose of fasting! The purpose of fasting is to live in contrition and humility before God; not to put up your fists at the other people who are fasting with you. It had all gone wrong! Horribly, horribly wrong! Isaiah wanted to put it right. How is it to be put right? He simply outlines four things.
The first is that you must “un-tie the yoke.” What did he mean? I think what he meant was that when the people came back to Israel, they were in debt. They did not own land, so they had to borrow to get land. They could not farm, so they had to buy their animals. Many of them became so indebted to others that those people that they were indebted to made them slaves to pay off their account. Many of them were sold back into slavery again and were treated unjustly.
Isaiah is saying, “Look, if you have the poor in your midst, and you have the debtors in your midst, give them the opportunity to be free. Remember that it is God who has saved you and brought you forward. You must un-tie the yoke of oppression. You must set those who are captive free: those who are captive to poverty, those who are captive to injustice.” But those who fasted often looked upon those that were the lowliest and thought that they were the unclean and unrighteous, whereas those who fasted were the holy and the true. No wonder God thought it was an abomination!
For those who had come back to the land and were now homeless, Isaiah says, “Give a home to those who are homeless.” For those who had no clothes, for they had often left the clothes in the places where they had been in captivity, and had now come back to Israel and were naked or had very little rough clothing, Isaiah says “Clothe those who are naked.” The Latin translation of this is: “They are the 'vagas'”: the vagabonds, the people of the street. Isaiah says, “If you want God to hear you, never mind your fasting! Take care of the hungry and the naked. Take care of the homeless and the oppressed, and those who are burdened by the yoke.” This is so real today.
This week I was talking with a good friend, a very intelligent person, who has been in Canada most of her life, but is from Egypt. She said, “Andrew, I don't know exactly what is going on, or who is behind the move for democracy. It is still cloudy and no one really knows. But the last time I was home, I saw things that told me that things had to change. There were young people who were living in the cemeteries and who get their shelter from the gravestones, for that is their home. There are countless, hundreds and thousands of beggars and homeless and the poor living in the squalid parts of Cairo. Many of these people have nothing to lose. Their life is already virtually taken from them, and now they are hungry and have no food and no money and no home, and they look at the wealthy and they look at themselves, and they know that something has to change.” It is not a far cry from the Israel that returned after the exile.
There comes a point where you can have all the facade of respectability that you want, but you have to care for those who are the most vulnerable. Now, for you and for me, when we encounter the homeless it is rare, when we encounter the naked to give them clothes it is very rare. We are not there to untie the yoke of the debtors for the most part. But what was important to Isaiah more than anything else was that in their hearts the people were honest.
They were honest about the state of the poor amongst themselves but also they were honest in their relationship with God. They didn't hide behind the smokescreen of religious propriety, but had a heart that was the heart of God. The heart of God, for Isaiah, was the heart of compassion. It was embodied in Jesus. He carried on the Isaiah tradition. He lived it. He practised it. You can't fool God. You can't pretend to be something you are not. God knows what is in our hearts.
When that man with the Thalidomide arms was drinking his tea, the mother and son finally made it to the counter. They bought their drinks and, as I observed, jelly doughnuts. The mother wanted to turn to the left at the counter, because the man with the Thalidomide arms was sitting on the right, but the little boy turned to the right. The mother looked mortified! As the boy started to walk towards the man, he stared at him with his eyes wide open. I know this because I was in the chair next to him.
The man with the Thalidomide arms realized this and he said to the young boy, “Would you mind picking up my cell phone and putting it on my shoulder in order that I might make a call?” The lad reached down to the arm of the chair and picked up the cell phone and put it between the shoulder and the chin of the Thalidomide man. The mother looked terrified! And then, he said, “Thank you” to the little boy, and the little boy ran back to his mother.
I think God is like the Thalidomide man. I think God knows that we don't want to say the truth. I think God knows that we, at times, would rather not practise what we preach, and that we hide behind it. But God will always be willing, even after we have tried to fool him, to give a compassionate welcome and open arms and a chance to begin again. For the people of Israel, they knew from Isaiah that you can't fool God, but if you listen to God, you can change. Amen.