Repairer of Broken Walls

When I was going to school there were with no other option but to handwrite our lecture notes.  In those days, I especially appreciated the margins.  The margins were my momentary escape from lecture monotony.  As the professor would share an illustrative antidote or go off onto a tangent that I was pretty certain would never make it to the final exam, I would begin to doodle.  Sometimes my doodling would be cartoon like figures and others times I would simply draw a series of shapes.  Of course, my lecture notes got the prime real estate on the page, but I always left room in the margins for doodling. 

This is what seemed to keep getting ancient Israel in trouble.  They kept forgetting and, sometimes, outright oppressing people who were in the margins of society.  Now, mind you they kept their elaborate worship and sacrifice system right where in needed to be in the center of the page, so to speak.  When it came to worship they were extremely faithful. They never missed a service.  They knew all of the songs.  They gave only the best offerings.  They paid proper respect to God through offerings, praise and fasting.  They worked hard to keep their worship center page. 

There was only one problem, while they were keeping their mode of worship central, it was deemed by God as dead.  How could they do everything God asked in worship and then be told their worship was empty?  One reason…and just about every Prophet of Israel speaks to this fault…the reason their worship was central and they could be told it was dead was because they allowed their worship of God to excuse them to marginalize the immigrant, the well-fare recipient, the widow, the orphan and their likes.  In a very real sense, Ancient Israel came to see these struggling neighbors as a people deserving no more time and space than “doodles.”  And each time the people of Israel would try to use worship to cover up how they  were shoving people to the margins, God would raise up a prophet to call them back to the point of worship, which was not just to honor God ceremonially, but also practically.

Isaiah spoke this word to Israel:

58 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet.  Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.  For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.  They ask me for just decision and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it?  ‘Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.  You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?  Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?  Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?  Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.  Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.  If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.  The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.  Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

God desires his people then and now to let our worship have meaning by moving people who others have marginalized to the center of the page.  It is not enough to simply “doodle” in the occasional service project, but to actually move the oppressed, forgotten and outcasts of our society to being as central to our lives as worship itself.  When we do that for and with God, then God’s presence, provision and light is not something we will experience in the margins, but in the center of all we do and are and have. 

This Lenten season as I fast to better put myself in position to worship God, I am reminded by Isaiah that I am not only asked to give something up for God but for the sake of others.  For me, this is what Faith Promise Plus is all about--giving over and beyond our regular giving to the point that we actually feel the pain of giving so that we in turn might more intentionally make the “least of these brothers and sisters of mine” as Jesus put it (Matthew 25), feel like the most in his love and care as demonstrated through our action. 

It is exciting to see people in our church family live in this way.  As men and women give of their time in a warm and welcoming way, relationships are being built every week through NextGen basketball that say to children and their families in our community, “You matter to God and his church!”  As we go into Belle Stone Elementary school, we get to say, “We will not say we love God without saying we love you!”  As we begin tutoring at Sahara Apartments we will are saying, “We don’t expect you to come where we are; we will meet you where you are.”  As our Work and Witness team serves in Guatemala they are saying, “You are worth going across the ocean to express God’s love!”  As we will work with Hope House 4 Women in a renovation project this summer, we will join this compassionate ministry center in saying, “Women are valued by God and his Church for more than their sexuality.” 

And as we make this love of the oppressed and forgotten as central as our worship, then we will be called by a beautiful name, “Repairer of Broken Walls!”  I don’t know about you, but that is a nick-name with which I hope God will trust us.