In December 2015, 14 county health workers were tragically gunned down during a work Christmas party in San Bernardino, California. In the flurry of media activity in the days that followed, one newspaper front page stuck out in my mind. It was the New York’s Daily News front page on Thursday, December 3, 2015. Here is what it said:
“God Isn’t Fixing This!”
Around the outside of this bold headline were tweets from various politicians expressing how their thoughts and prayers were with the victim’s families and encouraging people to pray for the victim’s families.
At the time, this controversial headline divided Americans, but I think this newspaper makes a fair point, don’t you? What is the point in “sending thoughts and prayers” when you have the power to help, and you do nothing? Do your “thoughts and prayers” excuse your inaction? Do your “thoughts and prayers” absolve you of your God-given responsibility to help your fellow man?
Christianity — for all its faults — would be much more widely accepted by the masses if there was less talk and more action. In fact, religious fervor is meaningless without action! All the worship, prayers, church services, fasting, and liturgy are actually pointless, useless, good-for-nothing — unless we put our religion into practice. C.S. Lewis once said:
Sending thoughts and prayers is useless unless it is accompanied by action.
A problem as old as religion itself
The incongruence between religious talk and religious action is not a new problem. People are pretty darn good at self-congratulation when it comes to being religious — fooling themselves into thinking that God is somehow pleased with them.
There was a time in the Bible where the people were so caught up in their religion that they completely lost sight of what God really wanted them to do. They were involved in lots of supposedly worshipful and religious activities but God ultimately rejected their worship.
Why?
Because there is a kind of religion that God accepts and a kind of religion that God rejects. In Isaiah 58, the people seem to believe they are doing all the right things. They are being very religious.
They think that by fasting they will please God and bring about his favor. They’ve grown up being told that this ancient practice — this pious act — fasting and humbling oneself before God, is good. And it is. But not on its own. In Isaiah 58, God rebukes the people. Here is how it unfolds:
Look at Me, God!
The people in Isaiah 58 somehow believe that God is letting them down. They are genuinely confused. They think God isn’t doing his job. It must have been a shock to hear the prophet Isaiah’s strong rebuke of these supposedly faithful acts.
How could God not be pleased? Why isn’t God stoked with us? We’re going to synagogue, we’re fasting and praying, we are sending thoughts and prayers… I mean, come on! God… look at us! Look at all the worshipful stuff we are doing! You owe us, God!
When God doesn’t respond in the way they expect, they think, “God isn’t fixing this! God isn’t doing his job!”
What True Religion Looks Like
I think that this passage gives us a whole bunch of things that characterize what true religion looks like. The symptoms of a changed life are not with meaningless acts of religion, but actions that serve others and help change this world.
This Biblical text is extremely helpful because it gives us at least 2 really practical things that we can do. It divulges to us what real religion — the kind that God accepts — looks like. Here are the things that God wants of people who call themselves believers:
Number 1: God wants you to bring freedom
In verse 6, God says,
Justice is the grand symptom of real faith. If you want to do a little check on whether your heart is aligned with the heart of God, ask this question: Do you have a burning desire to stand up for the cause of the oppressed and marginalized in our society?
We have never been better equipped to actually make a difference, and Christians should be leading the way. When was the last time you lent your voice to the voiceless? When was the last time you signed a petition, joined a protest movement, or written to a politician demanding action on matters of inequality and injustice?
One of my favorite true stories of how a small group of people stood up against injustice and made a big difference is this.
Tony Campolo, an evangelist and lecturer in sociology at Eastern College in the USA set an assignment in which he asked how a small group of Christians could bring about significant social change. These students focused upon the unethical practices of a massive multinational company called Gulf and Western Corporation, who was exploiting workers in the impoverished country of Haiti.
Here is the plan they came up with. Along with their professor, Tony Campolo, each student purchased one share in Gulf and Western and showed up to the annual general meeting. As shareholders, they were entitled to have a say in the running of the company, and each was entitled, by law to speak for five minutes at the annual general meeting.
One by one, each student stood up, read passages from the Bible that condemned injustice, then asked why Gulf and Western were treating the people of Haiti unjustly. They wanted the company to address the issue of low wages for the sugar workers, do something about the fact that they’d made the country more dependent on a single crop, and provide education and medical services for the people.
The purpose was to shame the directors into action, and believe it or not, it worked. The directors of Gulf and Western invited the students to meet to talk the issues over. Eighteen months later, Gulf and Western released a plan to act in a socially responsible way. They would set aside substantial amounts of quality land to produce food for the Haitian people. They would institute various educational programs that included working with Eastern University to develop a new university that would train teachers, lawyers, nurses, and engineers. Over the next five years, Gulf and Western spent half a billion dollars following through on their plans. And the lives of thousands were dramatically improved.
Now that is the kind of worship that God loves. It lives to set people free. So the challenge that I have for you today is this: What cause are you behind? Who are you standing up for? To whom are you lending your voice?
Number 2: God wants you to serve the poor
In verse 7, God says,
Renowned preacher Tim Keller says, “A life poured out for the needs of the poor is an inevitable sign of connection with God” because God’s heart is for the poor. Poverty and helping the poor are mentioned over 2000 times in the Bible, making it the second-most discussed topic in Scripture. In fact, there is no way you can have the reality of God’s character in your life unless you are giving away your stuff and your money. Money is quantifiable. It’s concrete. It’s measurable. How much of it do you give away from your abundance?
The heart behind true religion
Live to free others and love, serve and help the poor. This is the kind of religion that God loves and accepts. Your worship counts for little if your life does not reflect the heart of God for the poor and oppressed.
That said, I want to be clear on this. Often when we hear messages like this, we can feel guilty about our lack of action. But your motivation for doing these things must be love and not guilt. Guilt will not lead to a lasting change, but love can.
The things we do for God must always be our loving response to God — not our quest for acceptance by God, because that is not even necessary (we already have the full acceptance of God). Our good deeds can actually become part of our misguided religious fervor if we are not careful. It can become religious box-ticking.
The promises of true religion
The great thing about Isaiah 58 is that it is full of promises of what God will do if we spend our lives on behalf of the poor, oppressed, and marginalize as part of our normal response to what God has done for us. There are many If/Then statements — If you do this, then God will respond with that. These promises are awesome. And here they are:
Your darkness will become light. This makes perfect sense, when we turn our attention to the plight of others, it causes us to not be so absorbed in our own mess and also helps us realize that we are, in many ways, blessed.
He will never leave you, he will show you what to do, he will give you strength — a three-in-one promise. Some of us spend a lot of energy trying to work out what God wants us to do. I think a great place to start is to live our lives trying to set the world right on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed.
You will repair and restore broken people and cities. What an incredible promise. Wouldn’t it be good if Christians were known for what they build up rather than what they tear down? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we were known as people who restore and repair and rebuild broken and hurting people in our broken and hurting cities?
The last word
So, back to where we began — with this headline: “God isn’t fixing this”
You could pray a thousand prayers that the poor would be helped. You could sing a thousand worship songs that God would administer justice. You could listen to a thousand sermons on how God calls us to spend our lives on behalf of the poor and oppressed. You could fast a thousand days that God would save the nations, but if that’s all you do, in the end, you may very well end up thinking to yourself, “God isn’t fixing this.”
But, God put the tools in your hands and says, “You fix it!”
The money is in your pocket and the ideas in your head. You are his hands and his feet and voice in the world; now go and do something. After all, isn’t that what God did for us? He sets the example for us. God punched a hole in the roof of the world and climbed in. Now, who’s world will you climb into and help?
We can easily fall into our quaint traditions, our religious platitudes, our spiritual fervor, and our nostalgic customs, but the reality is, thoughts and prayers are useless.
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This post was previously published on Backyard Church.
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