Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Pentecost +11 - Year C

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

Right thinking is concerned with getting rituals correct.
Right action is concerned with getting justice correct.

There is nothing to keep these from working together. However, the witness of religious history is that religio/politico rituals keep trumping elementary justice, religious laws keep trampling lived experience. Were this not the case, the prophetic tradition, a third of the TaNaKh, would not have the continued presence and power it has.

In this adversarial setting, G*D has seen a larger picture, "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow". And so a question: given this eventuality, to what are we called to attend and practice?

Do you want to participate in the "snow/wool" conclusion or the "scarlet/crimson" resistance? If the former, here's the agenda:

• do no harm
  
• do good
  
• seek justice
         rescue, defend, and plead for
         the oppressed, orphan, and widow

This is importantly different from other approaches such as the General Rules of the United Methodist Church:

• do not harm
  
• do good
  
• attend to the ordinances of God
         public worship, Word (read or expounded), and Lord's Supper
         private prayer, searching Scripture, and abstinence

Again, these can work together. However religious prohibitions/ordinances, in our day against Gay and Lesbian Christians, seem to keep tripping up that which is for the "good of the land", the commonwealth of G*D, and a healthy connection between thinking and action.