Isaiah 1:10-17 - Concerning Virtue Signaling

 

Hear the word of the LORD,

            you rulers of Sodom;

listen to the instruction of our God,

            you people of Gomorrah!

‘The multitude of your sacrifices –

            what are they to me?’ says the LORD.

‘I have more than enough of burnt offerings,

            of rams and the fat of fattened animals;

I have no pleasure

            in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

When you come to appear before me,

            who has asked this of you,

            this trampling of my courts?

Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

            Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations –

            I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.

Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals

            I hate with all my being.

They have become a burden to me;

            I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer,

            I hide my eyes from you;

even when you offer many prayers,

            I am not listening.

 

Your hands are full of blood!

 

Wash and make yourselves clean.

            Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

            stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right; seek justice.

            Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

            plead the case of the widow.

-Isaiah 1:10-17 (NIV)

 

Isaiah’s original audience is the pre-exilic community in Judah. The precise date of the first chapter is uncertain; we cannot assume that since this predates chapter 6 it happened during the reign of Uzziah and not a later king. But Judah in Isaiah’s day was generally thought to be both prosperous and corrupt (Bible Project, n.d.-a). Here Isaiah contrasts the religious actions of the people of Judah with their corrupt practices. He insists that God does not want their “meaningless offerings.” Instead, God demands that the people “…stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice.” This is a theme present throughout the Old Testament: It seems that Israel was much better at keeping the ceremonial laws of ritual cleanliness and sacrifice than at following the moral laws of justice. God consistently rebukes them for this, insisting that the ceremonial laws are empty if Israel is not pursuing righteousness in all areas of its communal life (consider Psalm 50, Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, among others). Jesus confronts the Pharisees about this in Matthew 23:23-28, and applies it to his disciples’ lives in Matthew 5:23-24. It is, in fact, already a canonical proverb: “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice” (Proverbs 21:3, NIV).

Modern-day Protestants don’t have a ceremonial law that we follow as the Israelites did. However, we do have a series of practices that signal to others that we are being obedient. These include going to church, engaging in some activities and refraining from others, speaking in certain ways, etc. These are not bad things. But if our lives are not truly reflective of God’s desire for righteousness and justice, they are empty signals. And it is so easy to judge our conduct by these easily quantifiable actions that to seriously ask: am I seeking justice for the oppressed, for the people that my society spits out and ignores (as ancient near-eastern culture did to the fatherless and the widow). And am I trying to live without oppressing others? Our society has done a good job of hiding its oppression, especially from upper-middle class people like me. But it’s still there.

I’m at a missions organization that is also an engineering and architecture design firm. We have our share of religious practices: daily office devotions, weekly Bible study, a professional development track that requires online seminary classes. We like these, and we claim that they’re investment in our staff’s spiritual development. But they are meaningless if they don’t change the way we live, both within and outside the office. We recently finished going through 1 Corinthians, but our leadership team was concerned that gossip and hurtful language were still prevalent in our office. So we had a morning session in which we were each encouraged to reflect on the way our words help or hurt the people around us. I think this is an admirable attempt to apply the topics we had been learning about, to insist that we don’t just go through the religious motions of Bible study but see it bear fruit in our lives. It is the more admirable because it was birthed out of concern for the people in our office who might not feel comfortable speaking up when they are hurt by the words of others. We acknowledge that we still fall short, but admitting that there is a problem – not covering it up – is an important step toward building a culture that respects and protects all of the people in our office.