Isaiah 58:1-12

The practice of hospitality is an important practice in the Bible. Adam and Eve entertained God in the evening in the Garden of Eden. Abram and Lot both entertained unknown guest who were later revealed as angels. Melchizadek, Rebekah and Rahab were illustrations of hospitable people. In later days, Jews from around the Roman Empire would come to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage. Some people practice hospitality on a commercial basis and opened bed and breakfast kind of inns. The inns could range from nice accommodations to brothels.

The Greek word for hospitality is “love of strangers.” We have been teaching our children to be afraid of strangers. This is often a projection of our own fear of people we do not know. We hear a story of an abduction of a child from California, and we tighten the reins on our own children. And why not? If we are wrong, the child is still safe. If we are right, then the child avoids unspeakable damage. But underlying all of this is a society that does not love strangers. We fall into the trap of not trusting all strangers, without any discrimination between what might be good or bad. That comes into the church. Many of you have never had a missionary in your home. You have not volunteered to have the young people from Dublin stay overnight. You may never have entertained anyone in your home other than family or close friends. You may never greet visitors to this church. Some of you who are visiting may not know this, but the person next to you might also be a visitor. They will think that you have been in this church for years. So don’t be afraid to be friendly! Even if this is your only week here, you can help us by greeting strangers.

I saw hospitality in action in the DR. I have two stories for you. The first story is this. When the complex was being built, one of the first buildings was a place to house people who were visiting from the United States. If you saw the size and condition of many of the houses, the people just did not have the facilities to house ten to twenty people. Plus, it is not safe for American women to be out on the streets by themselves. Whenever anyone took a walk, it was suggested that two or three people go out together. So they build a place to house their guests. They hired people to cook the meals and do laundry. They treated their guests very well.

They would serve as good examples as we explore worship in Isaiah 58:1-12

1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 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 decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.

3 ‘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. 4 Your fasting ends in quarrelling 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. 5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

6 “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? 7 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?

8 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. 9 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, 10 and if you spend yourselves on 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. 11 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. 12 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. (Isaiah 58:1-12, NIV).

The Worship Problem: Real worship starts with God, but leaves the church and helps those in need. We find a worship situation here in Isaiah. The people were eagerly seeking God. They appeared to think they were on the right path. These people fasted. They fasted long, hard and passionately. Have you ever fasted? Many of us would be put to shame if we compared ourselves to these people. But they had a problem. This is the worship problem.

Their worship did not lighten their lives. Two times, in verse 8 and 10, Isaiah speaks about the light breaking forth, the light rising in darkness.

The worship solution: Lighten up! How does worship lighten our lives? Worship lightens our lives when our lives lighten the lives of others.

This happens in two ways. First, lighten the burden by removing the negative. Verse 9 says, “…If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk…” These all cause others to carry an unnecessary weight. This behavior darkens their lives; it does not lighten them. When they are done meeting with you, they come away oppressed, angry at your pointing finger, and hurt by your malicious talk. All of these burdens are unnecessary, but we put them on others by this kind of behavior.

Perhaps the greatest injustice done to anyone in this regard was done to Jesus Christ. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:11-14, NIV).

His own people did not receive him. There is something basic about family helping family. There is something basic about church family helping church family. There is something Christian about Christians loving others. But Jesus was rejected by his own community, his own family and his own race of people.

But Jesus did not let their rejection stop him. He was always open and is now open to receive anyone who will come to him. If Jesus is anything, he is hospitable. But he will not receive you as a guest. When you come to him, he brings you right into his family. We have the right to be called children of God. This happens when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

And those who have received grace should not burden others, but lighten their lives by removing the negative from the lives of others. Be careful what you say, what you do, how you treat others. Let’s not make life more difficult than it already is for other people.

Second, lighten the burden by doing something positive. Verse 6,7 and 10 speaks of this: 6 “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? 7 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? …10 and if you spend yourselves on 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.

This is the true outcome of worship. We meet God and we see his love, his grace and his mercy. We walk out of that experience and we see needy people all round us. These people need love and grace and mercy. We just found it in Christ. We celebrated it in worship. And now the glory of God shines through us as we reach out to those who have real needs.

Notice the love of strangers. These are people who you may not know. They are hungry, they are wanderers, they are without proper clothing. And you do something to help them. You do not just fast or worship God in church. You take Christ with you outside the walls. You help people as Christ has helped you.

Which brings me to my second story. One day we got in a van to travel out into the community to bring food to the people. The neighborhood we were in had people who were working in sweatshops, picking up side jobs wherever they could. Many of the husbands made it home once a week, once a month because they would work in a tourist area, but could not afford to live there, nor could they afford to travel back and forth. So they made it home when they could.

One family we visited had at least three children. The mother was forty when her child was born. In this home was another family. They had just come from Haiti and had no place to stay. This family took them in. They saw the need. They gave out of their poverty. The light of Jesus Christ that they sung about and talked about in church went out into the neighborhood… to the glory of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.