The worship directive – linking justice and mercy to worship

Recently, the Church had to navigate its way through the restrictions caused by a pandemic. It meant that singing wasn’t allowed in churches and of course, worshipping together is part of who we are as God’s people.

When that privilege was taken from us, we had an opportunity to think more broadly about worship rather than just seeing it as the singing of songs. 

In Isaiah 58, God’s people seemed ‘in it’ for what they could get ‘out of it’. Their prayers and their fasting were focused on themselves rather than God and others, in fact they were exploiting others but parading as those who were ‘godly’ and God had had enough!

God is saying to those who supposedly do things right that you’ve got it so wrong!

Verse 3 says, 

‘Day after day you seek me and you seem eager to know my ways’. However, they were missing it by a mile. They thought they had cause for complaint because God was not hearing or paying attention to their fasting and worship. ‘Why have we fasted, and you have not seen it, why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?’

God’s people thought they were doing the right thing and were proud of their religiosity, however, in all their times of fasting and prayer, there was a... 

1. Lack of justice for the oppressed! 

2. Lack of compassion for the poor!

As a result, God did not listen to their prayers. Verse 4 says, ‘You cannot expect your voice to be heard’. God was angry and challenged the people about these things and says if you want the breakthrough of blessing, you need to be …

...A people of integrity

Their actions didn’t match up to their words, and their behaviour didn’t reflect their belief. They were saying one thing and doing another, ‘You put on sack cloth and ashes and humble yourselves for a day but I want a lifestyle of justice and humility’ (paraphrase).

...A people of action

Verse 6 and 7 say, ‘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 him and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood!’ 

Mother Teresa said, ‘If you can’t feed a hundred people feed one’.

True worship focuses on God as we stand in awe of His mercy towards us. This, in turn, causes us to offer our bodies our lives as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – a spiritual act of worship!

Pray

Father God! May our commitment to you be not measured by how many love songs to Jesus we can sing in an hour but by our actions to bring justice, mercy, and faith to others’ God we pray, give bread to the hungry and to us who have bread, the hunger for justice. Amen!