Observation: The book of the prophet Isaiah begins by placing itself in historic context: "during the reign of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." This places the prophecies in the southern part of modern-day Israel (the part including Jerusalem) around 742-700 BCE. And right off the bat, God speaks about the people's rebellion. What have the people been doing wrong? Too much drinking? Gambling? Illicit sex? Offering the wrong kind of animal in the Temple on the wrong day? Nope. It's much, much simpler than that.
"Learn to do good: seek justice, rescues the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
And what's even more interesting is God doesn't even assume Judah will take God's word for it. God says, "Come, let us argue it out!" Through the process of real debate, through being truly honest with themselves and with God about their mistreatment of the most vulnerable in their society, Judah can attain repentance and forgiveness, and their "scarlet" sins shall be "like snow".
Application: I'm going to put this out there. It has become virtually impossible for Christians to talk about economic justice without being viewed as partisan. It's frustrating. And what makes it most frustrating for me is that from where I'm sitting, the Church didn't move. The Scriptures didn't move. Society did. This text has been around for nearly three millennia. Jesus and his fellow rabbis had huge swaths of it committed to memory. And all of a sudden it seems that any talk about caring for the poor--the "oppressed, the widow, the orphan" as Isaiah and others refer to them--is viewed as partisan rhetoric. So Christians don't talk about it. We give our divided society the steering wheel and say, "Here y'all, we'd rather get along amongst ourselves than speak with moral authority on this issue, so you handle this."
We can talk about interpretation. We can talk about how best to apply prophetic texts like this to our lives. We can ask the question, "Should this text be applied to civic governments, or only to people of faith, or some combination of the two? What, if anything, does this have to do with tax policy? Healthcare policy? Or is it all about voluntary, charitable giving and service by people of faith?" We can ask all that and more. What we can not do is fail to talk about it. We can't repent of what we don't admit or don't see.
"Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord."
Prayer: God, give us the strength to be honest with ourselves, and with you. Help us to obey. Amen.
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