I am still plugging away at this sermon but nearing some form of conclusion. I am posting it again and asking for some feedback and thoughts. I would appreciate any comments and some guidance in a conclusion (it is sort of hanging right now).
The judgment of God thundered down on Israel as Isaiah called the people on their actions. I imagined they looked around to see who Isaiah was addressing – just as you may be this morning. “When did we oppress? When Jesus, when did we do this?” Matthew 25 offers an answer to these questions when Jesus answered “when you failed to live as I told you.”
Recently there was a story on NPR on Lady Justice – you know the statue of a women holding scales and blindfolded. We find her at courthouses and we are also happy to see her because we want our justice to be blind to all but the facts. We want our justice be blind but we also keep our injustices blind as well. We simply do not see injustice around. “When did we oppress? When Jesus, when did we do this?” We so often fail to see the poor around us.
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools tracks the economic data that relates to its students. The most recent data revealed that nearly 40% of the students in the Antioch High School cluster – the one my subdivision is zoned for – live in or near poverty. That means four out of ten students that I pass at the bus stop each morning live in poverty. They look normal to me. It is when we begin to realize that poverty exists in our very neighborhoods and affects our own neighbors that we begin to see. “When did we oppress? When Jesus, when did we do this?”
Have you ever thought about how the poor become poor? How does someone suddenly find themselves living in poverty. I wonder if they wake up one morning and decide that today is the day they are going to become poor and live a life of poverty. No doubt, there are some who choose to do that as part of a religious devotion but I believe a great many more people find themselves in poverty in poverty for reasons beyond their control. I think of the American dream – you know the very idea that has called immigrants to this country over the past 3 centuries. The idea that leads people to want to buy houses, cars, and stuff just to keep up with the Baranoski’s. We celebrate the American dream and celebrate when we see it happen in our midst. The late Geraldine Ferraro said on the night of her nomination as the first female vice-presidential candidate, “My name is Geraldine Ferraro. I stand before you to proclaim tonight: America is the land where dreams can come true for all of us.” The result of our celebrated view of the American dream is that people are oppressed by the very thing they are trying to achieve. “When did we oppress? When Jesus, when did we do this?”
It’s interesting that God’s words of judgment through Isaiah following the announcement of a coming birth of a child. The verse which tells us that “unto us a son is born, unto us a child is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” We celebrate this verse at Christmas time as a announcement of the future coming of Jesus the Messiah but what does it mean? What would it mean to the people who heard the birth announcement followed by a pronouncement of judgment? Jesus came as a Messiah to free the people – not from the government directly – but from the Roman dream. You have heard of it. The one that told the people to pay their taxes so the Pax Romana could continue. The one that told the people to stay in their social order so that the Pax Romana could continue. The one that told the people to get along with the government and religious authorities so the Pax Romana could continue. The one that said to simply do what you are told so the Pax Romana could continue. The Roman dream that said if you do what you are told, you will not wake up to a nightmare. Jesus came to free the people from this dream. To show the people a better way to live their lives. To show the people that the kingdom of God had drawn near and living in the kingdom would change their lives forever. “When did we oppress? When Jesus, when did we do this?”
God’s judgment followed a call to see the world differently and to live differently. God’s judgment came to those who refused to live a new life. God’s judgment came on those who used the present system to their advantage and turned a blind eye to the injustice that their way of living was creating. “When did we oppress? When Jesus, when did we do this?”
Both justice and injustice are blind at times. We see what we want to see and many times, we miss what is around us because we do not see (or we do not want to see).
The Timothy Blog 