Thoughts from God on Religion

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

The church I grew up in had a youth choir, and I was in it.  We sang some classical pieces and some more recent pieces for that time.  One of the contemporary anthems we sang was based on a verse from the prophet Isaiah.  These are the words:
“Come, let us reason together, that’s what God says.  Come, let us reason together, says the Lord.  Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.  Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.  Come, let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18).

The tune was lilting and comforting.  It sounded like a love song, which of course it was.  We leaned into that song, and it tugged on our hearts.  It gave us a promise.  We knew that it was truth.

What the song neglected to mention was that those words from Isaiah are framed by these words: “Though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are filled with blood…cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice....  But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1:15-17, 20).

We didn’t sing that part.  These are not the kind of words we come to church to hear.  We aren’t at church to be excoriated, threatened.  Well, too bad.  Because if scripture has it right, this is exactly what God has to say to all of us who gather in worship.  This is God’s opening speech in the Book of Isaiah, and it rails against worship and attacks religion.

What is all this about?  What is behind this fury?  These words declare that worship itself can be evil?  If so, what makes worship so dangerous?  Let me try a few thoughts on what God may be warning us about.  Maybe worship can be dangerous when it easily becomes a substitute for the actual living out of our faith and compassion.  In church we can be all awash in good feelings that fool us into thinking we’ve completed something. 

We’ve kept our appointment.  We got there.  We did our religious duty; it was good and we are done.  The music inspired us.  Maybe some radical words were spoken that stirred us up.  It was climatic, cathartic, and rounded off as a finished experience, and then we went home.  And the poor suffered as they have always suffered; the lost knew no more of the saving grace of Christ; conflicts at church, at home, and around the world raged on; the lonely remained untouched and our families still had too little love; and no one knew or heard of the love of God for them.  Our worship changed very little. Actually, our being in worship may have even hindered change because it lulled us into thinking we had gotten it done.  If that is the case, then God really does have a hard warning for us to hear.

This warning also reminds me that the sanctuary can be the safest place on earth to hide from God.  What better way to keep from hearing the voice of God than to fill our ears and our mouths with religious noise? 

Every week we gather to worship.  Why?  Seriously, what are we there to do?  In simplest terms it is this – to praise God together, to pray for the world and for ourselves, to listen to what the Spirit of God would say to us, to offer our lives to the love of God and to God’s purpose for us in the world.  If this is real, then we are to be changed by coming to worship.  Our transformation is usually gradual and incremental.  Setbacks occur between stretches of progress.  It stretches over the length of a lifetime, and we need one another for it.  In truth, we need authentic worship together for this change to happen.

In worship we find our perspective and our vision.  We come clean of our sin and our failings, and purge ourselves of lies.  We touch again the greatest of concerns.  We recall the people who need our love and hear together the cries of anguish in the world.  We remember our true identity and the purpose God gave us for our living.  God meets us in worship and sends us back to our lives in the world to serve those countless opportunities of need.

Worship is where I am reminded to quit wrong living and turn to worthy living.  It’s where I grow up and start expressing better the love of Christ to those in my life.  It reminds me to reach out and welcome strangers, to make new friends, to give more generously, to serve more broadly, to lift my voice with brothers and sisters so that our collective voice can be heard in a noisy world.  It is where I am invited to choose the gift of being transformed.

Come, let us reason together, says the Lord.  Though your sins be as red as blood, they shall be as snow.