Ortho Cardia

How would you respond if Sunday’s sermon began with these words from Isaiah 58: “Shout loudly; don’t hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their crime, to the house of Jacob their sins” (Isaiah 58:1 CEB)? You might sit back and cross your arms to protect yourself. You may sigh, shifting in your seat or lean forward, ready to have some folks called out.

The proclamation gets a little confusing for the original audience as the passage continues with a list of their practices that seem right—very right. This community is noted for seeking God every day, desiring knowledge of God’s way; as a nation they acted righteously and didn’t abandon their God. They asked God for righteous judgements, wanting to be close to God. Isn’t this the deal? We offer acts of piety, and God blesses us. This section of Isaiah is believed to be written to the residents of Jerusalem around Israel’s return. They have seen God’s provision, and they are rebuilding their communities. The people believe they are doing all the right things, and it is God who has not been keeping faith.

We too might have our list of questions: Why don’t we sense God’s presence and blessings when we are tithing, praying, fasting, seeking, and volunteering for church ministries? It is interesting that, in Isaiah, these commitments are referred to as “afflictions.” This indicates a transactional approach to their relationship with God. Our assumptions can be similar. Living a faithful Christian life is lived in exchange for more good things coming our way via God.

What we hear in Isaiah and other scriptures is our lives and words can fulfill a checklist of rightness and still be very wrong. An emphasis on rightness is not the same as righteousness. One can produce a rigid view of faith filled with dutiful “afflictions” while the other results in a responsive life to grace upon grace.

This tension is played out beautifully in Les Misérables, written by Victor Hugo. The conflict between Jean Valjean and Javert is one of rightness versus righteousness. Unmerited grace of forgiveness is poured out in Jean Valjean’s life by the bishop which begins a transformational journey of being called “a new man.” His life no longer belongs to evil; he is called “brother” rather than “prisoner,” and the bishop claims Valjean’s life is now given over to God. (I can’t do it justice, so I highly recommend you read the novel or at least watch the movie.)

The post-exilic community in Isaiah 58 is not accused of orthodoxy issues (right teaching) or orthopraxy (right practice). The deeper diagnosis is an ortho cardia (right heart) concern. The first indication their hearts are not guided by God’s grace and transforming power is that, in the midst of fasting, they “quarrel and brawl,” even to the point of hitting each other with fists. The word from the prophet goes on: Isn’t this the fast I choose...

“to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6 NIV)

The fast God chooses is not practices added to our unchanged lives but a whole new way of life. We are called to continually be a people who are transformed by God in ways which bring change in us and the lives of others. Together we are like a light that breaks out at dawn (Isaiah 58:8). Having our hearts transformed means we will know healing in our faith communities, there will be an end to quarreling and brawling, and the “finger-pointing” will be removed. We are to be marked by generosity in spirit, in resources, in our assumptions—caring for all who are afflicted. We will have hearts that break with God’s heart, love with God’s heart, and respond to each situation with an ortho cardia. And then we have this promise:

“The LORD will guide you continually and provide for you, even in parched places.

He will rescue your bones.

You will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water that won’t run dry. They will rebuild ancient ruins on your account; the foundations of generations past you will restore.

You will be called Mender of Broken Walls, Restorer of Livable Streets.” (Isaiah 58:1112, CEB)

God’s desire is for a people who are living fully into the good news of the resurrection and whose ways of living bring the first fruits of the resurrection into the lives of others. This is what God wants to do in us, between us, and through us.

Dr. Mary Rearick Paul, D.Min, is a minister and Vice President of Student Life and Formation at Point Loma Nazarene University.