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A Call to Action Keith McFarren February 8, 2026 Isaiah 58:1-12 It’s always interesting when we hear from the prophets, especially when it’s someone like Isaiah. Because the prophets are found in the Old Testament, when they speak we can’t help but think they are talking to people who existed way before our time. Since the prophets are found in the Old Testament, we can usually figure that the prophet is talking to Israel, or to some individual or to another group of people who desperately need to hear God’s word. In today’s scripture Isaiah is once again talking directly to Israel. They have returned from their Babylonian exile, and God isn’t very happy with them. It seems that the Israelites thought they were living wholesome, godly lives. But that’s not quite how God sees it. God is mad. So mad at the way Israel has been acting that he tells Isaiah to, “Shout! A full-throated shout. Hold nothing back…a trumpet blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Israel with their sins” (v 1 The Message). God is so mad that the veins in his neck are sticking out and he wants Isaiah to rare back and let Israel have it…right between the eyes. He wants Isaiah to shout his word to Israel about the way they are living and the sins they are committing. But before we sit here this morning thinking to ourselves, “Yep, good old Israel is at it again. Once again, they screwed up and made God mad at them; they just can’t seem to do anything right.” Before we sit here on our own self made pedestals in self-congratulatory fashion snubbing our noses at Israel, let’s do a little research. Let’s go back and look at Paul’s second letter to his friend Timothy. In chapter three, verse sixteen, of that letter he tells us that, “Every part of scripture is God breathed and useful one way or another – showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes and training us to live God’s way” (2 Timothy 3:16 The Message). “Every part of scripture” means all scripture doesn’t it? All scripture no matter where you find it in the Bible, is intended for us to hear. Which means that we shouldn’t be sitting here this morning letting God and Isaiah shout and get mad at Israel and think that they aren’t talking to us. Whatever we read in the bible, whether it’s the good stuff or the bad stuff, it’s all meant for us. By looking at the words, “showing, exposing, correcting and training” we can see that what is being said or what is being “shouted” in our scripture reading is meant just as much for us to hear as it was for the Israelites some 2,600 plus years ago. So, pay attention because what Isaiah is shouting to Israel this morning is meant to be heard by us as well. The Old Testament is not very exciting to read…and it’s hard to understand so we’re tempted not to pay to much attention to it; and besides, we’ve got the New Testament and the gospels to read, which is so much easier to understand and better yet we have Jesus to look up to and to follow. But we need to remember that the Old Testament words are the words that Jesus grew up with, words that he knew by heart, words that he lived by, words that called him into ministry, words that he purposely passed on to us. The words of the prophet Isaiah, the words of the Old Testament are words that we, as individuals and as a faith community, need to hear today especially as our community, and our nation and our world find themselves facing all sorts of never before seen social and political situations. God wants us to hear what Isaiah is saying because we need to have these words stir our hearts into action. We need to change our lifestyle from being passive to being aggressive. We need to know and remember that the world around us is filled with people whose hearts are filled with hatred and violence and greed; people who only care about themselves and no one else. All we need to do is look around and we’ll see that there are breaches between people and countries that need to be repaired. There are divides between people and countries that need to be healed. There are ruins between people and countries that need to be rebuilt. There are people right here in the United States, there are people all over the world, who have been pushed to the margins of an increasingly heartless society, people who need to be set free from poverty and social injustice. There are people out there who are looked down upon and many times totally ignored…people who, for a multitude of reasons, have been declared as being less than human. We worship a God that is omnipotent…which means that he knows everything. He knows what’s going on here and around the world. He knows about each of us. He knows what you’re doing. He knows what you’re thinking. He knows what’s going on in your heart. So don’t come in here on a Sunday morning with a big smile on your face, praising God and acting like you love your neighbor as you love yourself if you really don’t...because God knows. Don’t come in here acting like you really care about the poor and the hungry and the homeless if you really don’t…because God knows. Don’t come in here acting like you care about social injustice for all people if you really don’t. Because God knows what’s really going on with you. God knows what’s in your heart. That’s why he’s so mad this morning. That’s why God is having Isaiah let both Israel and us have it with both barrels this morning. That’s why Isaiah asks specifically about fasting. Throughout the Bible fasting has always referred to as abstaining from food for spiritual purposes. Biblical fasting is not to be equated with a hunger strike that, when used today, is used to gain political power or attract attention to a specific cause. Nor is biblical fasting to be used as a type of diet that helps us promote ourselves for physical purposes. But because of the way it’s been secularized in modern times, fasting, as we have come to know it, is motivated in today’s world by either vanity or the desire for power…a far cry from biblical fasting, which is meant to center on God and focus on spiritual purposes. Richard Foster, in his book, Celebration of Discipline, suggests that “The greatest problems of our time is not technological, for these we handle fairly well. They are not even political or economic problems…glaring as they may be. The greatest problems are moral and spiritual, and unless we can make some progress in these realms, we may not even survive” (Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline; The Path to Spiritual Growth, 20th Anniversary Edition), HarperCollins, San Franscisco, CA, 1998, xi). The doctrine of our own instant gratification has become a spiritual problem. The classical disciplines that we have followed for so long, the prayers, the fastings, the confessions, the art of submission and even our worship services, they all call for us to move beyond our own selfish, “me first,” “what’s in it for me” attitudes and dive into the caverns of a deeper spiritual life and lifestyle. We’re called up to live a life that is no longer focused on our own wants and desires but instead live a life that is entirely focused on God and caring for the needs of others. Isaiah, who is speaking for God, notes in our scripture reading that there is a problem with the way the people are worshiping God. Rather than the worship service being focused on God, and rather than the people coming to church to be transformed into being like God and acting like God, the people were only going through the motions. Sure, they were going to church and sure they were fasting and sure they were listening to the scripture readings. But while they were doing all this, they were missing the point of developing and maintaining a vital relationship with God because their lives were turned inward toward themselves and their own greed and their own well being rather than being turned outward toward the needs of those around them. They looked good and they sounded good when they came to church but deep down inside they only cared about themselves. They were playing a game believing that as long as they continued to practice their spiritual disciplines on the outside that God wouldn’t notice the greed and their sinful lifestyles and all the unforgiven sins they had in their hearts. Isaiah this morning has a quick fix for this shallow way of both living our daily lives and of worshipping God. Get out of yourself, he says. Turn outward. Open your heart to God. True worship is more than just a religious ritual. It’s more than just a game of going to church every Sunday morning and singing and praying and listening to our weekly scripture reading and then going out into the world and practicing oppression and promoting social injustice toward those whom you think are less important than you are. To live this type of life is to totally miss the point of developing a vital relationship with God. As Christians, we all know that we can’t be saved without our faith in Christ…but at the same time that same faith lacks sincerity and integrity if it doesn’t reach out to the oppressed, or those suffering from social injustice, or to the poor, and the hungry and the homeless. God wants more from us. God want our spiritual lives fasting and our other disciplines to go beyond our own person growth and focus on acts of kindness and charity and justice and generosity toward those who have been marginalized and abused. Faith is not just a set of beliefs. Faith is a pattern of active behavior. Faith is how we worship God. Our faith is to be a reflection of the ways and the teachings of Jesus. Not just for an hour or two every week, but for every day and every minute of our lives. I listened to a girl stand up and talk about her father at her father’s funeral a few days ago. She loved and adored her dad just like everyone else at the funeral did. But she went a step further and said that throughout her lifetime she did her best to be just like her dad. She made a point of being kind and generous and compassionate just like her dad. It was her goal, she said, to be a living reflection of what her dad did and who her dad was. God has opinions on what our daily lives should look like. Our lives should look just like the kingdom vision that Jesus articulates. Our worship of God that comes through our daily living should not focus only on benefiting ourselves, but instead focus on building up the body of Christ, both individually and corporately. Our worship of God should not focus on ourselves but instead focus on reconciling the world to God and to one another through love and compassion and through grace not just on Sunday’s but every day of the week. In doing so, all nations, all generations and all creation together are the beneficiaries of that extended scope. Just as Jesus became the suffering servant and gave himself for us, so too does God call us to his divine service so that we might give of ourselves to the rest of the world. We live to be a reflection of the God that comes to us through Jesus Christ. This is how we glorify God. This is how we reveal God’s glory to the world. |
Bethel United Methodist Church
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