Isaiah 58.1-12, Matthew 5.13-20
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During the presidential election of 1992, when Bill Clinton was running against sitting president George H.W. Bush, I recall pundits talking about a gesture that Clinton made when speaking in public. He didn’t point his finger. He rather made a loose fist and pointed with his thumb. And the body language people say that somehow that was less threatening and would be less likely to put you the audience on the defensive. What do you think? Does this make you feel any better?
The prophet Isaiah, in this beautiful message, alludes to finger pointing. Apparently, it has never been viewed as a welcoming gesture. Did you hear it? "Remove those things in your life that burden you, the speaking of evil and the pointing of the finger."
Hear the word of the Lord, “Do not give people the finger.” Thanks be to God.
But there’s more to it than that. This teaching in Isaiah is one of the more beautiful admonitions that you hear in scripture, one that is easier than some to declare ‘thanks be to God” in its hearing. And the thread running all the way through is this idea of lightening the burden of others, setting the oppressed free. Isaiah casts it in relationship to the practice of fasting:
Do you want to fast? Okay, then here is the kind of fasting that God prefer you do: Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless into your house, and give clothing to those uncovered. And then here is an interesting one in light of the events of this week: do not hide yourself from your kin (I wonder if the Prophet Isaiah was ever cooped up in the house with his family for five days during a snowstorm).
But, there is a style of poetry in this text, a framework that I want to point out to you, that has spiritual significance. It goes like this:
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday (If, then). Then the LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
What I want you to make a note of is the IF-THEN pattern of speech. In Jewish scholarship it’s known as the Deuteronomic Formula (that will impress your friends) and basically it went something a little like this: "If you obey, you will be blessed, if you disobey you will be cursed." I won’t go into it here, but you can hear it clearly in Deuteronomy 11 and 30.
A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation with Emmaline Barrett, a teenager who has spent some time growing up in this parish. We were having coffee at at Sips Kafe here in downtown Shawnee, and we started talking about Karma. She was saying that she had been working through her thoughts on the subject--that if you do good things for others, then good things will happen to you. And if you do bad things to others, the same thing will happen to you. It’s a “what goes around comes around” sort of approach to life. And she was, quite astutely, saying that she noticed within herself a tendency to see life that way. If you give out good energy, then you will receive good energy in return. This IF-THEN way of thinking, in many respects, is what you might call Jewish Karma.
I wonder, even if you don’t officially subscribe to such thinking, how much of it sort of reflexively shows up in your spiritual practice? Part of it is just practical. If you think positive thoughts, do good things, then you’re sort of putting yourself into proximity to good things. And the opposite is true as well, right? But what in terms of the mystical side of things, that part of God that we sometimes envision moving the pieces around on the chessboard? God sees us feeding the hungry, giving shelter, and God tips the scales on our behalf. What do you think?
Amy Oden, who is professor of Old Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C., she crafts a kind of middle position (and we’re Anglicans, we like the middle road). If you choose this particular kind of “fasting” that Isaiah is suggesting, then you will have the blessing you seek: light, healing, help, protection, satisfying of needs, and, most centrally, the presence of God, guiding you. You and I individually and as a parish, cannot have a full relationship with God without a vital relationship with each other. Your spirituality is not disconnected from the rest of everyday life. When healthy relationships are cultivated, God shows up. In a unique kind of way. God shows up.
Rick Riley use to write the back-essay for Sports Illustrated. He tells the story, back in 2007, of NFL running-back Ahman Green. Green was traded to the Houston Texans (He now plays for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League). And when he arrived to his new team he was hoping to wear his lucky number 30. But that number was already assigned to Jason Simmons.
I don’t know if you realize how this kind of thing works in professional sports, but players will forfeit their number for the right price. They barter. And you can imagine the kind of trades that go on. Riley recounts that one player paid $38,000 to another player for the number they wanted. Roger Clemens, the former pitcher for the New York Yankees, gave Carlos Delgado a new rolex for his number 21. And Eli Manning gave New York Giants punter Jeff Feagles a family vacation to switch from number 10 to 17, then later Feagles got his kitchen remodeled from Plaxico Burress for giving up the 17. Pretty lucrative.
But here is what Jason Simmons wanted. He asked Ahmed Green to make a month’s payment on the mortgage of a single mother. Green liked the idea so much that he decided to make it a year’s payments. Then the owner of the Houston Texans found out about it and says he would match whatever amount Green put up. The story got out into the Houston community and a local grocery store offered groceries for a year, then a furniture store, then a mattress store, then an electronics store and then, believe this or not, the utility company offered to pay the heat for a year.
Simmons, who grew up the only child of a schoolteacher and a Dad who was on disability, says he remembers that nearly every family that they knew as a child lived with them for a time to help them get back on their feet. Does that sound familiar?
Jesus said "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your God who is in heaven. It seems that giving glory to God in heaven is essentially the same thing as showing kindnesses. Kindnesses that can be contagious. And that, my brothers and sisters, is good Jewish Karma.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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