The Great Ends of the Church: The Promotion of Social Righteousness
Sermon text for May 20:
Isaiah 58:1-7, Luke 4:16-21
Back in the late 1970’s a small group of us from all over the county gathered in a condominium in Breckenridge. We came together as Presbyterian Christians to address a pressing issue of social righteousness. All around the world children were dying of hunger. From New Mexico to Biafra, mothers and fathers grieved for their hungry children and cursed their helplessness to do anything about it.
We brainstormed how we could encourage the Presbyterian Church to make world hunger a top mission priority. We knew it would entail organizing dozens of presbyteries to overture General Assembly. And that meant mobilizing pastors and elders from all over the country who shared our vision. We felt confident that we would accomplish our goal because the Presbyterian Church exists to promote social righteousness. It is what we do.
When the Assembly convened it was overwhelmed with overtures from all over the United States asking the Church to address the issue of world hunger. The General Assembly listened, and world hunger became the top mission priority of our denomination for the next several years.
Suddenly comfortable Presbyterians who never had to think about hunger began to notice hungry people at home and abroad. Images of starving children with distended bellies were burned into our consciousness. And even in sleep we were haunted by God’s beloved children who went to bed hungry every night.
Presbyterians quickly organized around hunger. Hunger Action Enablers were hired in every presbytery. These people helped us see hunger as a real issue. In response Presbyterians fasted and gave the money we saved to the hunger fund. Some of us initiated food drives to help hungry people in our own neighborhoods. Some of us visited third world countries and came home with heart-wrenching tales of hungry children.
Last year I was the interim pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greenwood Village. This congregation learned that hunger was a real problem for people in the Front Range. They created a food cupboard that has grown into a half a million dollar operation that serves thousands of hungry people every year. In scriptural terms this is one way of “doing justice, and loving mercy.” At Covenant’s food cupboard the clients are made to feel important. When they have gotten the food they need, a volunteer even carries the food to the client’s car and sometimes to the bus stop. By carrying bags of food for the poor the volunteers are literally “walking humbly with the Lord our God.”
What Covenant does is part of the finest tradition of the Presbyterian Church. We exist to promote social righteousness, to see to it that children are fed, the poor have clothing, and the sick are visited. It’s what we do. It’s why God called us into being.
I have chosen examples of social righteousness that are not likely to make too many of us angry. But everyone who has been a part of the Presbyterian Church for very long knows that our biggest fights are about social action. We might wonder why the Church keeps doing things that make people angry. But we can’t help ourselves. Promoting social righteousness is part of our Presbyterian DNA. It is what we were created to do.
Presbyterians have been involved in social action ever since John Calvin was called to reform the social structure of Geneva, back in the sixteenth century. But God’s People have been involved much longer than that. The Prophets spoke of social righteousness as “walking humbly with the Lord our God.”
Presbyterians are haunted by phrases like, “In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me.” And, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord your God.”
We know that it is not enough to just think about social righteousness. The Church is called to live social righteousness in the world. It is that simple and that complex. We accept the internal turmoil that inevitably comes because we take the word of God seriously.
Our uneasiness with social righteousness echoes the uneasiness of God’s ancient people. In Isaiah 58 the people are disappointed with God because God seems silent and distant. They believe they are seeking God faithfully – going to temple, offering sacrifices, in short doing all of the outward things that demonstrated faith. But God saw something different. God saw a people for whom social righteousness had become a stumbling block. Listen to what God says, “Day after day they seek me … as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.”
This passage was written just after the Jews returned home from the Babylonian captivity. They are doing well in their ritual life. They say the right prayers and offer the right sacrifices, but they have not yet figured out the relationship between worship and social action. As they tried to rebuild their own lives as well as their civilization, justice took a back seat to competition and getting things done. Those with resources wanted more, and the less fortunate became invisible.
God was not impressed, “Day after day they seek me … as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness.” In scripture the words righteous and justice are usually interchangeable. We might catch the meaning of this verse if we paraphrased it like this, “Every day they look for something from me, as if they were a just nation in which everyone shares in the wealth, and no one is taken advantage of.”
It is true that the people fasted and prayed, but from God’s perspective the fasts had no religious meaning because those who fasted were not just and righteous. True worship is irrevocably tied to social action. But Israel forgot that, and they began to stagnate spiritually. So God reminded them of the meaning of worship. He said, “Is this not the fast that I desire, to loose the bonds of injustice? … To let the oppressed go free? …. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?” And now paraphrasing, If you remove the yoke from people’s necks, stop pointing fingers at others, stop speaking evil and offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your lives will be fulfilling. From God’s perspective worship and social action are irrevocably linked.
While some of our members become angry over the Church’s response to social issues (and sometimes the church gets it wrong) we can’t stop responding to injustice. The Bible won’t let us. When we hear Jesus say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … to set at liberty those who are oppressed” we feel called into service. And when he says, “In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these you have done it unto me” we want to be first in line to serve. These passages are a part of who we are as Presbyterians. It is what we do. It’s who we are. It is what it means to be a Presbyterian.
Copyright © 2007 by Dwight R. Blackstock
Isaiah 58:1-7, Luke 4:16-21
Back in the late 1970’s a small group of us from all over the county gathered in a condominium in Breckenridge. We came together as Presbyterian Christians to address a pressing issue of social righteousness. All around the world children were dying of hunger. From New Mexico to Biafra, mothers and fathers grieved for their hungry children and cursed their helplessness to do anything about it.
We brainstormed how we could encourage the Presbyterian Church to make world hunger a top mission priority. We knew it would entail organizing dozens of presbyteries to overture General Assembly. And that meant mobilizing pastors and elders from all over the country who shared our vision. We felt confident that we would accomplish our goal because the Presbyterian Church exists to promote social righteousness. It is what we do.
When the Assembly convened it was overwhelmed with overtures from all over the United States asking the Church to address the issue of world hunger. The General Assembly listened, and world hunger became the top mission priority of our denomination for the next several years.
Suddenly comfortable Presbyterians who never had to think about hunger began to notice hungry people at home and abroad. Images of starving children with distended bellies were burned into our consciousness. And even in sleep we were haunted by God’s beloved children who went to bed hungry every night.
Presbyterians quickly organized around hunger. Hunger Action Enablers were hired in every presbytery. These people helped us see hunger as a real issue. In response Presbyterians fasted and gave the money we saved to the hunger fund. Some of us initiated food drives to help hungry people in our own neighborhoods. Some of us visited third world countries and came home with heart-wrenching tales of hungry children.
Last year I was the interim pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greenwood Village. This congregation learned that hunger was a real problem for people in the Front Range. They created a food cupboard that has grown into a half a million dollar operation that serves thousands of hungry people every year. In scriptural terms this is one way of “doing justice, and loving mercy.” At Covenant’s food cupboard the clients are made to feel important. When they have gotten the food they need, a volunteer even carries the food to the client’s car and sometimes to the bus stop. By carrying bags of food for the poor the volunteers are literally “walking humbly with the Lord our God.”
What Covenant does is part of the finest tradition of the Presbyterian Church. We exist to promote social righteousness, to see to it that children are fed, the poor have clothing, and the sick are visited. It’s what we do. It’s why God called us into being.
I have chosen examples of social righteousness that are not likely to make too many of us angry. But everyone who has been a part of the Presbyterian Church for very long knows that our biggest fights are about social action. We might wonder why the Church keeps doing things that make people angry. But we can’t help ourselves. Promoting social righteousness is part of our Presbyterian DNA. It is what we were created to do.
Presbyterians have been involved in social action ever since John Calvin was called to reform the social structure of Geneva, back in the sixteenth century. But God’s People have been involved much longer than that. The Prophets spoke of social righteousness as “walking humbly with the Lord our God.”
Presbyterians are haunted by phrases like, “In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me.” And, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord your God.”
We know that it is not enough to just think about social righteousness. The Church is called to live social righteousness in the world. It is that simple and that complex. We accept the internal turmoil that inevitably comes because we take the word of God seriously.
Our uneasiness with social righteousness echoes the uneasiness of God’s ancient people. In Isaiah 58 the people are disappointed with God because God seems silent and distant. They believe they are seeking God faithfully – going to temple, offering sacrifices, in short doing all of the outward things that demonstrated faith. But God saw something different. God saw a people for whom social righteousness had become a stumbling block. Listen to what God says, “Day after day they seek me … as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.”
This passage was written just after the Jews returned home from the Babylonian captivity. They are doing well in their ritual life. They say the right prayers and offer the right sacrifices, but they have not yet figured out the relationship between worship and social action. As they tried to rebuild their own lives as well as their civilization, justice took a back seat to competition and getting things done. Those with resources wanted more, and the less fortunate became invisible.
God was not impressed, “Day after day they seek me … as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness.” In scripture the words righteous and justice are usually interchangeable. We might catch the meaning of this verse if we paraphrased it like this, “Every day they look for something from me, as if they were a just nation in which everyone shares in the wealth, and no one is taken advantage of.”
It is true that the people fasted and prayed, but from God’s perspective the fasts had no religious meaning because those who fasted were not just and righteous. True worship is irrevocably tied to social action. But Israel forgot that, and they began to stagnate spiritually. So God reminded them of the meaning of worship. He said, “Is this not the fast that I desire, to loose the bonds of injustice? … To let the oppressed go free? …. Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?” And now paraphrasing, If you remove the yoke from people’s necks, stop pointing fingers at others, stop speaking evil and offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your lives will be fulfilling. From God’s perspective worship and social action are irrevocably linked.
While some of our members become angry over the Church’s response to social issues (and sometimes the church gets it wrong) we can’t stop responding to injustice. The Bible won’t let us. When we hear Jesus say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … to set at liberty those who are oppressed” we feel called into service. And when he says, “In as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these you have done it unto me” we want to be first in line to serve. These passages are a part of who we are as Presbyterians. It is what we do. It’s who we are. It is what it means to be a Presbyterian.
Copyright © 2007 by Dwight R. Blackstock
posted by Dwight Blackstock | 1:45 PM
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