2-5-23 Sermon & Scripture

There are a lot of things to get upset about in life. People cut you off in traffic. You didn’t get invited to that special event. Probably the top of the list, though, of things that can make you angry and upset, is you put your money in the machine to get the candy bar, you press D2 for it to fall out, and it gets stuck, hanging there off D2, doesn’t come out. Doesn’t that just fill you with rage beyond compare? It’s not fair!

Probably the easiest form of religion we can fall into is a transactional religion, a vending-machine kind of relationship with God. We have certain things we want out of life, and the only way to get that is through God, who has a lot more control of stuff than we do, so we try to figure out: What does God want from me so that I can get what I want from God? We boil it down to something manageable, doable, and we try to give God what God wants so we get what we want. 

We never say it like that. This is not intentional. None of us think that that’s our relationship with God. It’s not until the candy doesn’t come out of the machine that we start to realize something might be off. 

Transactional religion is simple, and you might say it’s a baseline default, whether we like it or not. When life gets overwhelming and complicated, our transactional religion might be comforting. It’s one thing we can control, or so we think. Now, I’m going to use language carefully here:

If you regularly pray for protection for your family, and because of that you expect that your family will be protected from bad things happening, you might have a transactional religion. 

If you read your Home Altar regularly, go to church, serve on a committee, and tithe, and you believe that because of this you should be considered to be a godly person, you might have a transactional religion.

If you believe that you’re set for eternity because you prayed a sinner’s prayer and asked Jesus into your heart, or because you were baptized or went through confirmation or what have you, you might have a transactional religion.

If your kid winds up in the hospital and you have all these thoughts about what did I do for God to allow this to happen, you might have a transactional religion.

If you think that if we just elect people who put piety in their public platform, then America will come back to God and everything will be better, you just might have a transactional religion.

And you might find that your candy bar is still hanging off D2. 

Notice the emphasis is on what we do to gain blessings.

If you believe that the superstitious rituals you do or fail to do as a fan have any bearing on the outcome of the game, you’ve got a candy bar barely hanging on to something in there.

Be honest with yourself. You may not think you believe it, but maybe somewhere underneath what you know you’re supposed to believe, you kinda do have a transactional understanding somewhere in the mix.

In Isaiah 58, the people had punched in the right numbers, but no candy bar. What they thought they needed to do, after coming back from exile, was to faithfully observe all the rituals, and then they wouldn’t be in trouble again. Let’s offer the right sacrifices, observe festivals properly, do our duty of ceasing on Sabbath, and really, actually fast on fast days, maybe even have some extra fast days so that God can see how miserable we make ourselves for God, and God will make sure that these people that are so faithful to God will be protected and blessed. 

But the candy bar’s not coming out. Why are we fasting and making ourselves miserable? It seems like God is not noticing. Our blessing got stuck on the way down.

Isaiah points out two problems with the way people are going about their religious observation.

First, it seems as if the people were just going through the motions. What the people thought was that fasting was a day for denying yourself, as if what God wants from you is to give up something you like, humbling yourself, purge yourself of joy, because God’s glory requires your abasement and pain. Or you somehow fought your way to prove your commitment and worth to God.

I remember in high school I was undergoing renewal and zeal for God, and I decided to fast one day a week. I think it was my second week of doing that, I started getting thoughts like, “Who else is doing this, right?” I felt like I had just propelled myself into the top 1% of Christians, no, maybe the top 1%. No, maybe even the top 0.1%. I mean, who else fasts one whole day a week. The third week, I blew it. Couldn’t make it the whole day. And boy, did I really feel like God was disappointed in me. Just a regular Christian, no special honors or anything.

Isaiah tells the people of Israel and me and you, that we’re missing the point. We’re fasting for us to get something from God, not to help us draw near to God or to focus on God or strengthen our partnership with God in the world. Isaiah 58.3 says that we can serve our own interest on our fast day. Yes, even when we humble ourselves and make ourselves miserable, it can still be about what we want. You ever see someone who seeks to help everyone else and be a servant, but it’s clear that it’s all about them and not the people being served? Ego right out in front. 

In that same verse, Isaiah 58.3 states the other problem, “You oppress all your workers.” You have separated your relationship with God from your relationship with other people, as if one has nothing to do with the other. The Bible, from beginning to end, insists that you can’t love God if you don’t love your neighbor. If you want to get on God’s good side, to give God what God really wants, well, God isn’t looking fasting and spiritual disciplines as much as God is looking for compassion, mercy, and justice. Our spiritual disciplines should help us move further into that. If our spirituality and religion takes us further away from doing justice and loving kindness, then we aren’t serving the God who delivered the Israelites from slavery and later rose Jesus from the dead. 

Sometimes fasting can just make you grumpy, which is not a fruit of the Spirit. Fasting can work, however, when you don’t eat as much because you are sharing food with people who don’t have food. When you bring the homeless poor into your house. When you clothe the naked. Helping bridge the gap between what you have and what they don’t, that kind of fasting is the point. How are you supposed to say, “God, look at me! Hear my cries! I’m so hungry!” when there are people literally asking you, “Look at me! Hear my cries! I’m so hungry!” God takes notice of all of that. 

Bono once preached on Isaiah 58, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2006. This was in the midst of Bono working with anyone and everyone trying to secure debt relief and AIDS relief for Africa. Many religious and political leaders were there, including President Bush fighting a war on terror. Bono quoted a wise man who told him, “Stop trying to get God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing, because it’s already blessed.” Well, what’s God up to? God is with the poor. Take care of them, partner with them, build community with them, and “then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard” (Isaiah 58.8). In other words, world leaders, God will have your back. “Sounds like a good deal to me, right now,” Bono said.

God is not interested in your religious ritual. God is not interested in anything transactional. God is interested in transformation, in a relationship of trust, in a partnership to heal the world, starting with healing yourself. Why would you think God simply wants you to deprive yourself of food or pleasures? Does God have an ego like that? Is God a bully like that? You have God’s love. You have God’s blessing, because you’re God’s beloved child. But you’re not the only one. And there are other beloved children of God who are really hurting – maybe you are, too. God is trying to get our attention and to say that we need God and we need each other. And yes, there are spiritual disciplines and practices, and the point of these is to help us be channels of God’s love, not just self-centered people trying to feel better. And therein lies our transformation away from a transactional, me-centered spirituality and me-centered walking through this world. God is taking us from a transactional religion to a transformational relationship.

We are the salt of the earth. Don’t lose your saltiness. This world needs your flavor. You are the light of the world. Don’t hide it away. Draw people to reconciliation with God through deeds of love. No one is attracted by religiously pious people. Everyone is attracted by genuine goodness. When you turn towards God in partnership, your righteousness exceeds the most scrupulous Pharisees who miss the whole point. It’s about God’s love for everyone. 

If you want to sacrifice something, sacrifice the stuff that has made life not so great for other people. Sacrifice your lashing out in anger. Sacrifice your gossip. Sacrifice your traditions that lead to unjust, difficult conditions for others. Sacrifice your self-focused religion. Sacrifice your certainty and need for control.

And draw near to God, with nothing but open hands, trusting not in yourself, but in God’s love and mercy, and begin a new kind of relationship that will change you and everything. Then your light will break forth like the dawn. You will open up all kinds of possibilities for joy and healing and community. You may be the broken machine in this world. God gently invites you to shake loose the sweetness.