Isa. 5:13-17, 24-25; 1 Thess. 5:12-28; Luke 21:29-38

Social inequality and social injustice plague our society.  It seems it has always been so.  This is nothing new.  Even as I turn to our passage from Isaiah today, I realize this Old Testament prophet was standing against social injustice, and I fear we have learned little in the millenia that followed.  Not sure if that should give me solace or make me hopeless.

Isaiah paints quite a picture.  He doesn’t just denounce injustice, but paints a picture of what it looks like and how we got here.  “The multitude is parched with thirst,” we hear.  Hunger, thirst abound.  And we hear of a land in ruins where even the pasture doesn’t function for food. But if you back up and read carefully, the reason for this is quite astounding.

“Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge; their nobles are dying of hunger.”

It turns out the real hunger is for knowledge.  This is knowledge of God, and this has led to their rejection of all that is right, and led to people being hungry, afflicted, and destitute.

Today is no different.  And oh how I wish we could reclaim and understanding of sin that sees this.  The effects of sin on the community.  Today our leaders are given an easy pass.  “Oh, the world is in a shambles….”  Rather than holding their feet to the fire and saying, “Those of you in government have a duty to take care of the poor, the afflicted, the aging, the dying.”

It turns out that just just by a society having poor people – that is an indication that the community has sinned.  And I say TRUE.

Furthermore, we all bear the responsibility in a representative democracy.  We elected these idiots.  They have failed to understand God’s law, or they have failed to enact it.

Instead they spend their time with worthless idols, like 10 Commandment monuments, and unconstitutional bills which have no chance of helping educate or care for the poor.  They spend their time spitting in the face of God.

And how different are we?  We bear the responsibility of holding them accountable.  And instead we sit idly by, droning on with words, but failing to march down there and demand to talk to our legislators about how disastrous their leadership has been, and how God himself is offended by their lack of compassion.

Social justice means just that.

“There, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will become rotten, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”

Let’s activate ourselves, and stop sitting around waiting for God to fix this.  He put us here, emblazened with the Holy Spirit, to do his will.  GO.

-Matt