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Relevant Verses: Isaiah 58, Jeremiah 7; Luke 4:18-19, Matt. 23

Leading Question: Does religion – things done in God’s name – tend to liberate or oppress?

Comment: If God is the Creator of all, then it stands to reason that we are all his children and all equally free before him and before each other.

But curiously, some of the greatest oppression of human beings is done in the name of religion (God), but also some of the greatest acts of liberation are a result of a commitment to God. Luke 4:18-19 reports a remarkable incident in the synagogue at Nazareth when Jesus read from the book of Isaiah before his hometown people. Quoting from Isaiah 61:1-2, this is what Jesus read:

18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
       to bring good news to the poor.
 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
       to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

That is religion at its best: a liberating force for those who are burdened and oppressed.

But Jesus can also point us to religion at its worst. Matthew 23, Jesus’ list of woes against the scribes and Pharisees is a sobering narrative of how religion can go wrong. These lines, in particular (Matt. 23:2 – 4), represent a sorry story about the ability of human beings to distort religion to their own purposes:

2“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”

These are the same religious functionaries that accused Jesus of Sabbathbreaking when he healed the sick and infirm on the Sabbath.

Question: What is at work here that, in God’s name, his liberating gift becomes a burden?

The Sabbath fast: Isaiah 58 is powerful narrative that describes how God’s gift can be turned into a curse:

1 Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
    to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
   and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
   they delight to draw near to God.
3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
   Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
   and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
   will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
   a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
   and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
   a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
   the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
   you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
   the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 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.
11 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.
12 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.
13 If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
   from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
   and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
   serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
14 then you shall take delight in the Lord,
   and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
   for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Question: How can one do ordinary (secular?) things on the Sabbath as a means of helping others while retaining a sense of the sacred that God seems to have intended when he gave us the Sabbath?

Jeremiah’s temple speech. Though Jeremiah is not one of the “official” texts for this week’s lesson, Jeremiah’s temple discourse (Jer. 7 :1-15) is a powerful example of how religious symbols can become a deadly camouflage for a wicked heart:

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”

5 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 7 then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

8 Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord. 12 Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, 14 therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

Question: What can be done to prevent the catastrophic double-standard that Jeremiah’s temple discourse describes? Are we equally vulnerable to such a double standard?

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