I’m sitting in the Bipartisan right now. Seconds ago the area next to me was swarming with nursing school students, all wearing their blue scrubs and talking about issues related to heart disease. I couldn’t help but feel out of place wearing my Carhartts and typing on my computer, working hard at making an xml file for work. It was weird to feel like I stood out so much sitting next to those people, but it was also good because it got me reflecting. Feeling like I am in the middle of a bunch of people who have totally different values than me is nothing new. I feel it almost everyday in Portland. I go to coffee shops and have conversations with people and realize that what I say and what I value as a Christ follower makes me stand out just as much as being the guy wearing Carharrts and a hooded sweatshirt, sitting in the midst of a swarm of nurses-to-be.
Yesterday in the lifegroup I’m involved in, we read through Isaiah 30. It was a good chapter to read and I was thinking back about it. There’s two interesting sections I was hoping I could point out. The first is verses 1 and 2 which state:
“Woe to the obstinate children,”
declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection,
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
As Israel realizes it is in trouble, it has started looking to Egypt as a possible means of help. This inevitably points out a crazy contrast, which is that before it was Egypt who had oppressed Israel, it was Egypt who had enslaved the people of Israel, and here is Israel looking to the people who had been their oppressors to now protect them. Something has gone wrong: God’s people are looking to their former masters(they were slaves after all) to protect them. It’s not the first time the people have looked to Egypt as maybe being not that bad of a thing. Even as God was delivering the people to the promised land, they kept thinking it would be better to go back to Egypt. Seeking Egypt’s help was a sign that they had forgotten their identity as a people: a people who had a very different protection system.
This shows up in the other verse that stood out to me as well. Verse 12 and 13 state:
Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
God’s people were not living the way they were created to as a nation. It had been set apart from the beginning that they would be a different sort of nation, but instead they began to rely on oppression and deceit. These are the tools of any regular nation, not the people of God. God had set up rules for how they would act precisely so they wouldn’t fall into oppression and deceit. these people began relying on oppression and deceit and looking to Egypt for help. In other words, they were not operating as the people of God, but they were operating just like their neighbors.
I am struck as I continue to read through the prophets of how these issues of justice come up. Before I had had this notion that what Israel had done wrong was build some idols, have premarital sex and maybe forget to do sacrifices. But the more I read, the more I realize, they were actually continuing to act in their religion, they were offering sacrifices, they were also being pluralistic, but they were offering sacrifices. But this issue of justice keeps coming up as I read, they were acting like the world in how they did business and how they engaged in politics. God repeats this over and over.
What if as the church we have been emphasizing the wrong parts about what it means to be worldly? We worry about listening to positive, uplifting music, but we engage in oppressive consumption. We talk about loving our neighbor but don’t back it up by how we spend money. We talk about God’s love for the poor, but then side with politicians who favor the rich.
Has anyone else found themselves getting their understanding of what it means to be a Christ follower shifted this way? How are you processing these types of things? Do you think I’m wrong in what I’m reading?
