“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in."
Isaiah 58:6-12
This morning, I drove to Panera Bread to meet an incredible woman of God for some coffee (or, to be true, tea) and conversation. I followed a steady line of cars into a shopping complex and watched people routinely pull into the parking lots of Panera and Starbucks, many of them inevitably here to order "their drinks" as they do every day before returning to their shiny cars and driving off to their careers.
I have a hard time with suburbia. There is such an air of presumed sophistication present here. And I am not referring to Briargate specifically. I am speaking more generally of an attitude that prevails in our society. Look at our nice vehicles: they are shiny and modern, and the payment we are obligated to make on it every month is well worth the status we associate with it. Look at our $4 coffees in recycled cardboard cups; our perfectly placed, chemically coloured hair; our laptops and SmartPhones. How sophisticated we are!
I am not condemning cars, coffee, or laptops (I am typing this on my year-old MacBook Pro). But I do feel that we tend to glorify and idolize our advancement, as if technology and the marketplace are the standards by which we measure the sophistication we value so highly. SUV+latte+iPhone=sophistication?
Hardly. What if we shifted our thinking to believe that the truly sophisticated thing is compassion? That our advancement is in the growth of our love? That the number of people we have genuinely helped is more important than the figure in our bank account?
Ultimately, who cares about the rest of the mess? Is eternity concerned with your social status or fashion or ability to acquire? There is nothing spectacular about buying and owning and storing. What is unique and beautiful is to give and aid and sacrifice. Eternity is looking for what Brennan Manning in the book The Furious Longing of God called "a community of prophets and professional lovers."
Please, be sophisticated. Be so advanced in love that it is a remarkable gift to a dying world. Cultivate such a rich compassion that souls are redeemed by the display of God's kindness you live before the hopeless. Develop a disregard for the trivialities and trappings.
