9/26/2021 Prophets – Jeremiah’s Dirty Underwear, Jer. 13:1-11

           What is it that mothers are famous for saying to their children as they head out of the house?  “Make sure you have on clean underwear in case you’re in an accident!”  Humph.  After doing my clinical work in a Level 1 trauma center I can tell you they don’t care one bit about your underwear!   They’ll likely cut it off.  I guess at least the fragments would be clean!  I can see it now, a nurse in an emergency room saying, “Oh, this man had on dirty underwear.  Send him to the non-sterile operating room for surgery!”

There’s also the saying, “cleanliness is next to godliness.” 

Hopefully without undermining parents’ quest to make sure their children put on clean clothes, or the struggles of any homemaker who is trying to get a slobby family to tow the line, we have God instructing Jeremiah to make use of dirty underwear.  While the word “underwear” doesn’t show up in our Bible translation (in fact the concept of underwear wasn’t even invented in Jeremiah’s time) the linen loincloth that Jeremiah is instructed to buy, then wear, then hide by a riverbank, and retrieve probably for a public display, was indeed underwear.

Before we go further I do want to make a textual note.  Our translations follow the ancient manuscripts and say that Jeremiah hides the underwear in the cleft of a rock along the Euphrates River.  That would mean a 400 mile trip from Jerusalem to hide it, and a second 400 mile trip from Jerusalem to retrieve it.  That’s a lot of walking, or perhaps a very big Uber bill for the donkey ride!

The Hebrew word translated as Euphrates is “Perat.”  However within five miles of Jerusalem is a place called “Parah”.  When you consider there are no vowels in ancient Hebrew the two words are only one letter apart.  And so, far more likely is that Jeremiah travels just five miles each time with the loincloth.

The fact that Jeremiah was told to purchase a garment made of linen possibly carries many layers of meaning.  Indeed any number of materials could have been used as undergarments, as long as they weren’t too scratchy!  But while linen was used for many things – clothing, sheets, curtains, and burial shrouds – hear these words from Leviticus 16:3-4.  This is God giving instructions to Moses for his brother Aaron as Aaron does his priestly duties, “Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place… He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and shall have the linen undergarments next to his body, fasten the linen sash, and wear the linen turban; these are the holy vestments.  He shall bathe his body in water, and then put them on.”
            When the priests were doing their holy duties all of their attire was to be of linen.  Their garments were not to be made of wool or animal skins, but of linen.  As you may know, linen is a fabric woven from flax yarn.  It was considered to be a luxury good.

(Just a bit of historical trivia, it appears as if humans have been making things of linen for about 10,000 years; which is longer than we’ve been making pottery!)

Though the text does not overtly say it, as I suggested in the children’s sermon, many biblical scholars think the insistence on the undergarment being linen is a reference to the priests.  And so, God is critiquing the priests, who instead of leading the people the right way, are filthy and leading people the wrong way.  If the people don’t have good leadership they are hardly fully responsible for their actions.  Also, bad leadership means that the basic needs of the people are not being met.  All in all then, the main thrust of this critique is against the leadership.  However, the overall critique is against the stubborn sinfulness of the people.

The image of dirty underwear is pretty vivid.  Underwear is literally close to us.  It protects and supports our most intimate parts.  Whether or not your mother told you to put on clean underwear in case you’re in an accident, I think we’d all agree that wearing clean underwear is preferrable to wearing dirty.  Without getting too graphic, how would it feel to step out of a bath or shower and put on dirty clothes?  What would be the point of bathing at all!

Thus Jeremiah wants the people to know how God feels about the situation.

We often think of God as being high and mighty, above us, pure and holy.  We think of God looking down upon the dirtiness of sin from a safe and clean height; and thus able to throw lightning bolts or a scowl of condemnation upon the sin.

But realize the message God has sent through Jeremiah.  This is where this oft overlooked passage carries its powerful word.  What if human sinfulness is like God having to wear dirty underwear?  What if those who are to be representing God are actually embarrassing?

I like the way Patrick Miller, Professor of Old Testament Theology at Princeton puts it:

“It is not difficult for us to think of our fate as being tied to what God does.  This texts reminds us, however, as do the prayers of Moses [in Exodus and Numbers] and the community laments [like Psalm 44], that God’s reputation is tied to what human beings do.  That is, the one who has chosen to make the loincloth cling so closely is genuinely affected by what happens to it.  God’s glory depends in some fashion on what the community of faith does.  How the Lord is perceived and responded to by the world is determined in no small measure by how the Lord’s way is revealed through the life and work of those people who bear the Lord’s name.”  (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 6, Pg. 686)

Indeed there have been plenty of scandals in the last decades about church leaders; we may think especially of Catholic priests.  Those are high profile wrongs, but I think it is a lot more. 

Christians have long been criticized as being hypocritical; talking about love but being holier-than-thou and looking down their long judgmental noses at others.  Or being apathetic about the wrongs of the world while staying safely in their lives of comfort.  Christians long have the reputation of preaching justice but not rolling their sleeves up and getting their hands dirty in the messiness of the world.

But God says that we are like a linen loincloth, an undergarment.  Would you like God to have to show up to the world in dirty underwear?  Yet how does your life reflect upon what being a follower of is?

From that perspective the dirty underwear message is one that makes us feel bad.  But it is also a message of grace from God; again this is a many-leveled image.

We often feel our hopes dashed when others do not life up to our expectations of them – maybe it’s a co-worker, or a friend, or a family member.  When people fail us we are saddened.   Hopes and dreams that were grand seem lost.  Let’s apply that to God then.

From one perspective the Bible is a story of humanity’s ongoing rebellion against God.  We often see it that way.  But it is also a story of God’s dashed hopes.  Over and over again God tries.  Over and over again humans fail.  God is disappointed.  But God keeps trying.

God will put on the dirty underwear of humanity and live another day with us.  And then do it again tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.  I hope we are not foul creatures in God’s thoughts.  Indeed the Bible says otherwise, but God is long-suffering with us.  Dirty underwear isn’t nice.  But God will do it in order to be with us.

We all look forward to the time when we can be clean and fresh and forever unsoiled.  Until then we are thankful for God’s grace which will wear us close, no matter how foul we may be. 

September 19, 2021 Prophets – Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon, Jeremiah 26

 Introduction to the Lesson

I’m sure you’ve seen people with megaphones or placards in front of government buildings preaching whatever their view happens to be.  It is usually something pretty extreme – either to the political left or to the right.  Some of them may have a religious message saying it is God has judged the land and will be bringing wrath down upon us if we don’t change our ways immediately.

People like this make us feel very uncomfortable; even if we generally agree with the message they are proclaiming.  When I encounter them I give them a wide berth – walking as far away from them as possible.  While the First Amendment gives them every legal right to do what they are doing, I often feel like they are being counterproductive – doing more harm to their cause than good.  But who knows?  You’ve got to get your message out somehow!

Have you ever been one of the people who are out there alone with a megaphone or placard?  It takes guts, that’s for sure!  Or maybe a bit of craziness!  You really have to believe in what you are saying and you are opening yourself to ridicule from everyone.

We are about to read about what is called Jeremiah’s “Temple Sermon.”  It recounts a time when Jeremiah went to the temple courtyard and proclaimed the message from God to the nation.  I suspect the scene was a lot like a person standing in front of a government building shouting into a megaphone.  You’ll be able to tell when we read it that lots of people heard.  The response was mixed.

Sermon

Jeremiah was called by God to preach a very unpopular message.  We’ll find in the weeks to come that Jeremiah was basically preaching against his own nation.  Americans like to champion the underdog who fights for what is right against insurmountable odds.  Fights like that usually end up with the underdog getting squashed, but we tend to forget those stories.  Instead we remember the rare times when the underdog does triumph.  We think of things like the military victory of Washington crossing the Delaware.  Or a legal victory like the story of Erin Brockovich.  But the message of giving in to the bully because it is God’s will is not something Americans generally go for.  Yet that is what a lot of Jeremiah’s messages to his people were.

That’s complicated and we’ll look at it in more depth in the weeks to come.  For today we want to focus on the idea of boldly preaching an unpopular message that will probably get us enemies.

We live in a divided nation.  And the divisions seem to be getting worse.  The list seems to be growing all the time: racial issues, immigration issues, economic issues, all sorts of issues about the pandemic, religious issues, political issues.  It’s getting to the point that the only safe thing to talk about is the weather!  No, not even that because you’re likely to get into a fight about climate change!  So I guess all that’s left is whether the Buffalo Bills have a shot at the post season!

Americans have always had a diversity of opinions.  The problem is that in the past there seemed to be the possibility of civil discourse and ultimately a working together.  Now each point of view has become its own close-minded tribe.  They have their own experts who create evidence to support their point of view.  Then they believe it and mock the other side.

I’m not immune to all this.  I certainly have my thoughts and opinions.  I think that people who think like me are smart and that the people who disagree with me must be complete and total idiots for believing what they believe. 

I suppose I could use the pulpit as a platform to spew out my own beliefs and sway you all.  But our congregation is not unified.  We are all over the place in this stuff.  Those of you who would agree with what I said may compliment me for my boldness at proclaiming the truth.  Those of you who disagree with what I said would either say I must have gone off my rocker for a Sunday, or eventually look for a different church – again a source that tells us the truth that we want to hear.

Actually if you want my opinions about all of this stuff I’d direct you to the many social statements that have been made by the ELCA over the years.  While I don’t agree with all of them, they do represent my overall thought processes.  And one of the key things behind those statements is that God and God alone knows the full and complete truth of anything.  Our role is to apply the knowledge and wisdom that we have; and apply them with self-giving love.  We do that because that is exactly what Jesus did in the crucifixion.  The arrest, crucifixion, and death of Jesus of Nazareth defies all logic, yet it is the perfect statement of self-giving.  And that is our model.

So with that in mind, and with the example we have from Jeremiah, let’s give ourselves two very big challenges.

Challenge one: Would you do what Jeremiah did?  Would you be willing to be the person with the megaphone that preaches a deeply unpopular message?  Would you be willing to publicly proclaim a message that presents challenges to the foundational beliefs of our nation? 

What would God have to do in order to convince you to do that?  Would the clouds have to spell out your name and the message you are to give?  Would God have to make you, or a family member, personally suffer as the victim of some great injustice before you would act?  What would it take for you to do something for God that is way out of your comfort zone and that would subject you to public ridicule and maybe even a criminal trial?

I think that’s worth pondering because it tells us how deeply rooted we are in our comforts and our way of life.  If there’s anything that upsets God the most with our nation today I doubt it’s issues of sexuality or any given piece of public policy.  I think it’s about the way so many people are basically addicted to life being comfortable and safe.  Or perhaps I should say that too many people feel entitled to a life that is comfortable and safe.  They are simply unwilling to listen to or accept anything that takes them out of that.   They are so certain that comfort and safety are God’s will for their lives.  A look at the Bible will tell you there is no truth to that!

And then there’s the second challenge.  We are deeply divided, entrenched even, in our beliefs about many things.  As I said before, each side has its own set of facts and experts to back up their point of view.  It’s a self-affirming cycle that makes true critical review impossible.

And so, what would it take for you to be able to see the value of the point of view of those who are your opponents?  What would it take for you to break from the tribal circle of thinking we so easily develop and be open to new facts?  Maybe those who perceive things differently than us truly are wrong with 95% of their facts.  But that still means there is 5% of truth in what they say.

I’m no prophet like Jeremiah.  I don’t begin to think I can predict the future 100 years ahead like he did quite effectively.  But I do think I can safely say that our nation is going to rip itself apart from the inside if we cannot learn to walk together into the future. 

That does not mean we have to be nice to those we don’t like.  I’ll never preach that.  But each needs to be able to learn the value of the other.  Maybe you totally disagree with a person and think he or she is a total moron.  But you still need to invest in understand why they think the way they do.  And don’t then cast them off as simple or ignorant or trapped in fear.  Truly dwell in the reality they live.

They may do the same for you, or they may not.  You can’t keep other people from being jerks.  But through the faith God creates in you, you can keep from being a jerk yourself.

Our world is facing huge problems.  There are always huge problems to face in the world.  If any nation is to be great (as great as the ancient Jews Jeremiah spoke to wanted to be) it must engage problems collectively and with courage.  Comfort and convenience must be set aside and all must roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.

Ultimately we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.  None of us is righteous enough to say we deserve eternal life or even an easy life here and now.  God alone is righteous.  God alone must save.  It is in God that we hope, and it is God that we take courage to do what God calls us to do.

September 12, 2021 Prophets – Jeremiah’s Call, Jeremiah 1

Leo Perdue, Hebrew Bible Professor at Brite Divinity School, says this about Jeremiah, “Perhaps more than anyone in his time, Jeremiah provided the means by which a despairing people could hope for a new future.” (Harper Collins Study Bible, 1993, Pg. 1113)

I wouldn’t call Jeremiah a dark book, but it has much that shows despair and depression. I would not want to be Jeremiah. I believe he had a VERY tough life; mostly because he did what God called him to do, and his own people were against him. Nevertheless, his ministry spoke of God’s enduring love in the midst of troubled times.

Jeremiah has a subtly different point of view from some other prophets. Perhaps most notably is Isaiah. To appreciate Jeremiah we need to turn the clock backwards 400 years to the time when Solomon became king. An event happened there that marked Judaism for centuries.

King Solomon’s father was King David. David is the one who really brings all the Jews together into a nation. David was a brilliant military leader. He was also a savvy politician. Among his many savvy moves was making Judaism the state religion. David had two chief priests: Zadok and Abiathar. When David died Abiathar backed David’s son Adonijah as the next king. Adonijah was the heir apparent after all. Zadok backed Solomon even though Solomon had far less right to claim the throne. When Solomon became king he killed all those who had opposed his rise to power. Zadok continued as the high priest. However, Solomon was merciful to Abiathar and rather than having him killed he banished him to the town of Anathoth, several miles north of Jerusalem.

In all of this remember that David did not build the temple in Jerusalem. Solomon did. And Zadok was the high priest during its construction and his descendants continued after him. Just like the king, the high priest passed down through the family. The Zadokite priesthood was always close to the royal family and it ran the temple in cooperation with the royal family.

Abiathar’s blood line and his family’s religious work did not die out with him. It also continued. And so 400 years later we have Jeremiah the prophet, a descendent of Abiathar.

I hope that helps us realize that Jeremiah is an outsider to the positions of religious and political authority, but he is still of a religiously prominent family. And it comes as no surprise that he is critical of the powers that be.

It is helpful to make a contrast between Jeremiah and Isaiah, even though they lived 100 years apart. Isaiah was part of the ruling class. Not surprisingly he supported the ruling class even as he was harshly critical of them. Isaiah called for faithfulness in God and if that was done then God would stay true to the promises to King David and his ancestors are leaders, plus the eternal importance of Jerusalem and its temple.

Jeremiah says that the Davidic monarchy, Jerusalem, and the temple are not the center of promises with God. They are secondary. For Jeremiah the centerpiece of Judaism is the covenant God made with the people through Moses. So we’re talking Egypt, the wilderness journey, the religious law, and conquering the Promised Land. This an older convent than the one with David.

We can feel these two threads of thought throughout the Old Testament prophets. Some say the David covenant is central. Some say the Moses covenant is central. They aren’t opposites but there is a contrast. When you look at the writing of the gospels and the beginnings of Christianity, early Christians were trying to establish Jesus’ authority by saying he is the fulfillment of both the David and Moses covenants.

That is a lengthy background to Jeremiah but it is important to remember as we spend the next few weeks with him.

Today we read Jeremiah’s call story. Jeremiah was a reluctant prophet. He did not want to do it. But God called him, and as we will see in the weeks to come, he felt he had no choice.

1:5 is a famous verse where God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Even though we know this calling is going to lead Jeremiah into a very difficult life, the idea that God has a specific and clear plan for Jeremiah is very inviting.

The Rev. Henry Langknecht, pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Great Falls, Virginia notes:

…let us assume that God knows everyone before they are formed in the womb. But does God also consecrate and appoint all of God’s people to specific vocations or only those destined to become prophets? If all, does that mean that God has an “authored plan” for each of our lives? What are the means by which God communicates our consecration and appointment? And what are the consequences should we pursue another line of work?

(Working Preacher website, August 22, 2010)



Rev. Langknecht’s words get at a very sticky point. Perhaps Jeremiah’s call was resoundingly clear. But what about many people’s? I find very few people who have a resounding clear sense of God’s call for them. I find few people who can truly say they are in the line of work they are because God called them to it; that they are married to the person they are married to because God called them together; that they have kids, or don’t have kids, or they have the number of kids that they have because God called them to it; or that they live in the home in which they live because God called them there.

No, few people, if anyone, can describe such a divinely planned life. Most people of faith do quite a bit of stumbling around as they seek and discern what God is calling them to do. And perhaps even that is a mistake. Or maybe that misses the point.

While a person like Jeremiah clearly and solidly felt God’s call, (although in the weeks to come we’re going to find that he hated it) few people do. What does that mean for the rest of us?

Quite often when people are confused or feeling out of control I hear people say, “I know God has a plan. I just have to trust that God will bring it about.” That is a sincere and faith-filled statement. But I don’t like it.

For one, it’s not biblical. Let’s take a subtly but significantly different approach, and one that is from the Bible. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “We know that in all things God works for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

That means that when your life is directed according to God’s loving purposes, God is going to be working through you to bring about good. That means that life is going to be an ongoing discernment of what is the loving thing to do, and then acting on it with the best of your knowledge, knowing that your knowledge isn’t perfect and that you will mess up.

Consider the verses immediately preceding 8:28, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit…” (8:26-27a)

If you read Jeremiah you’re going to discover that he did not know a divine plan for his every action. He lived out of the overarching call of God.

The exact same thing goes for us. If you must know a “plan” for your life it is this. These are not my words. They are Ephesians 2:10. These are words to impress deeply into your heart, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Got it? Pretty simple. It actually sounds a lot like the call of Jeremiah!

When you don’t know what to do take the path of good works. When you can’t feel God’s nudge or guidance, always do the most loving thing. Be critical thinking in that love, but love boldly and daringly. That is God’s plan for you. That is God’s purpose for your existence.

Maybe tying all of it together is this. I think some people get too hung up on discerning God’s plan for our lives. Life is not a riddle from God to solve. God is not standing above you giving you tiny tweaks and nudges hoping you’ll get it right. God is not like that. That isn’t very loving. God doesn’t play games.

Instead recognize that you are what God has made you. You are a creature made by God in God’s image and loved by God. I can give you no higher praise than that. And never never never let anyone convince you that you are anything less than the goodness of being created in the image of God.

I know my thoughts would completely kill the advertising industry and much of our economy. The quest of most people is to find purpose, meaning, and value within themselves. They can’t find it in a satisfying way so they keep buying more stuff that doesn’t fulfill.

But you need not take that quest. You know who you are. You know whose you are. You know where your value lies.

So yes, before you existed God knew you. God appointed you a doer of good, inspired by his love. Live it every day until you die and you will have fulfilled God’s will for your life.

September 5, 2021 Prophets – “3rd Isaiah”

            A colleague and I were recently talking about the way a great commitment made in a crisis can become eroded away by the mundane drudgery of daily life.  When you are in the crisis you really mean it from the bottom of your heart that you are going to change.  You have to!  You know it!  But then daily life wears you down and your commitment begins to wane.

How often have people been told by their doctors that they need to lower their cholesterol.  But they ignore it.  After all, you don’t feel any different if your cholesterol is high or low.  It’s just numbers on a paper from a blood test.  But then they have a heart attack.  Stents are needed, or maybe even bypass surgery.  Maybe there is heart damage.  And so the person has gotten a serious wake up call.  Change is needed! 

Then they do indeed change.  They eat better.  They know they have to.  But old habits die hard.  Sometimes a person just indulges.  Sometimes there is a bad day, or a bad week and it is hard to eat right.  And let’s face it.  Most days are pretty ordinary – perhaps even boring.  Nothing exciting happens.  And so the commitment made in a crisis slowly erodes away.  Again, there are no immediate consequences for indulgence and so it is easy to do it.

The same could be said for someone who commits to quit drinking after a drunk driving charge.  Or someone who promises to act better after beating his/her spouse.  Or a student who commits to studying harder after failing an exam.  Or a person who is praying for a miracle in a health diagnosis.  He or she prays to God for healing and in return promises to be a more faithful person.  Or just about anything. 

My point is not that we make a commitment in a crisis and then fail at it down the road.  My point is that daily life can often be mundane drudgery.  There is little excitement to keep us on our toes.  Commitments made in crisis can erode.

That life is often routine is probably a good thing.  Constant stress, change, and excitement is exhausting.  But it does mean that unhealthy ways easily creep back.

Isaiah 57 addresses a time when old unhealthy ways had crept back and become reestablished.  You’ll remember that the book of Isaiah is rooted in the ministry of the 8^th century B.C.E. prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem.  But the book includes writings from well after his death.  Chapters 40-55 were probably written after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians.  Chapters 56-66 appear to be written after the fall of Babylon and the Jews were able to return and rebuild.

I’ve been calling these three time periods of Isaiah what many biblical scholars call them: 1^st Isaiah, 2^nd Isaiah, and 3^rd Isaiah.  But such a distinction is perhaps too artificial.  There are consistent theological themes throughout.  They are all genuinely rooted in the work of the original Isaiah.  And quite possibly the person who wrote chapters 40-55 also wrote 56-66, just at a later time.

Last week we read Isaiah 40 with its famous wonderful words, “Comfort, O comfort my people says your God.”  They come from the time period when the handwriting was on the wall for Babylon.  Its end was near.  Hope was flourishing among the Jews.  The Babylonian captivity lasted for 70 years.  That meant that all of the Jews alive in Babylon were born there.  The original generation that was taken from Jerusalem was gone.  Almost all of the Jews in Babylon had never even seen their homeland.  They had certainly heard stories and been indoctrinated with the faith of their ancestors.  But they had never seen it.  For them the future was probably full of hope and promise.  They would return.  God was with them.  It was a new beginning!  I imagine the hope and promise they felt as Babylon easily fell to the Persians.  Then there was joy when Persian king Cyrus let them return. 

I imagine them traveling back to the ruined city.  Their minds were filled with the possibilities.  They had heard of the land flowing with milk and honey.  They had heard of the great city of Jerusalem.  Their expectations were high.

And then they saw it for real.

Babylon, near modern day Baghdad, was built along the banks of the Euphrates River.  While it wasn’t exactly green and lush it was easy to be prosperous.

Jerusalem… well, it was a pile of rubble on a hilltop.  Not big.  Not nice.  And even though it lay in ruins it had inhabitants.  Some people were still living in the area.  They weren’t too keen on being displaced by these returning Jews who claim the rights to it.

I don’t know what the returning Jews expected, but I believe they were disappointed.  History shows that many Jews stayed in Babylon and created a prosperous community there.  Other Jews who had fled to Egypt when Jerusalem fell stayed there too; again creating a prosperous community.  Those who returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the promise had it rough.  There’s little wonder that leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah struggled to inspire the people.  Other prophets of the time, like those we’ve already covered: Haggai, Zechariah, and a little later Malachi, echo the complaints.

The sustaining faith and wonderful hope that had come from the crisis of Babylon was eroding away.  Life in the Promised Land was hard.  I think it was mundane drudgery for most. 

So much for a great and glorious future led by God! 

So much for being the example the world would be turning to!

If they had any pride in themselves for being the chosen people and having a great future easily brought about by God they were disappointed. 

Here’s the thing.  If life for the Jews who returned was obviously and noticeably easier than those of people of other placed and other religions staying faithful would have been easy.  But that is not the way of the world.

Isaiah 57 takes us into some deep truths – and they are truths we may not like.  These same truths show up also in the heart of the New Testament, but it is easy to ignore them. 

Isaiah 57 has two messages.  Both are intended for those who are righteous.  The first of those messages is that God sees the ways of the wicked.  God sees the way people are returning to the same Canaanite fertility religions their ancestors had participated in.  Isaiah uses sexual imagery because those fertility religions also involved a lot of sexuality. 

And so the word to the righteous is that even though it does not look like God is punishing the wicked for what they are doing, God still sees.  God knows.  They will be dealt with by God accordingly.

And that takes us to the second message for the righteous.  And this is the kind of thing we don’t like.  The message is that just because you live righteously – just because you have faith and your heart in is the right place – does not mean that your life will be any better or easier than someone who is “bad”.  In fact, you are still a sinner.  You are still living in need of God’s grace. 

I want to reread verses 14-17 for you.

 

 ¹⁴It shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.” ¹⁵For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite. ¹⁶For I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made.

¹⁷Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry; I struck them, I hid and was angry; but they kept turning back to their own ways. ¹⁸I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort, creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips.

 

The tough part comes when you realize who is being referred to here.  When it says in verse 17, “Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry; I struck them, I hid and was angry; but they kept turning back to their own ways…” that is referring to those who are righteous.

You see, Isaiah 57 points out that even the most righteous are not truly righteous before God.  Even the humble and contrite have so many sins to their name that God finds them reprehensible.  The only real difference is that the righteous are still turning toward God with some measure of humility.

And so, God is still going to work on them with a righteous passion to cleanse them.  That means life for the righteous is not easy.  In fact, as our psalm today pointed out (Psalm 73) the lives of the righteous may well be a lot harder than the lives of the wicked. 

Ultimately though, God’s final word to the righteous is peace.  God will bring healing.  That is something we can understand.

Let’s conclude with the truth God speaks in verse 16, “For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:”  In other words, God is simply bigger and beyond us.  But yet the verse continues, “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”  So the immeasurably big and powerful God also choses to dwell in the small and insignificant.

Can you ever understand God, or fully know God’s will?  No.  Can you predict or control God?  No.  Will your life be easier because you turn to God in your life?  No.  But God is at work in you, shaping and refining you.  God’s ultimate word for you is peace and wholeness forever.