“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 1:11-17, NIV).

These past few months have been … unusual. Throughout this time, I’ve been urging my congregation to find lessons to be learned. I’ve heard good reports about learning to find peace in solitude and about using this time to ponder deep questions.

When God allows us to walk through difficult times, it’s good to reflect on what we can learn from them. These months will soon be in our rear-view mirrors and historians will evaluate their meaning. We’re living through them and that gives us an advantage in understanding that we should make the most of.

The passage above (and its parallel in Amos 5:21-24) came to my attention recently and I suspect that it can help us interpret these times. I’m not suggesting that this is the meaning of current events or that God made all this happen for this reason. I’m only proposing that current events may give us a way of better understanding this passage and vice versa.

In this passage, God is rejecting all the forms of worship that Israel had been carefully following – practices that God instituted. God calls them meaningless and worthless. God calls them burdensome and detestable. God hates their worship – the same exact worship that God laid out for them in detail.

Why? “Your hands are full of blood!” Any good Israelite would be taken aback by this accusation. “I haven’t killed anybody! You’ve got the wrong guy!” From what follows, we can see that actively violent behavior isn’t what’s at stake. God goes on to explain how to remedy the situation. First, simply by repenting of evil, but then Israel is given some action items:

• Learn to do right

• Seek justice

• Defend the oppressed

• Take up the cause of the fatherless

• Plead the case of the widow

Israel has been delinquent in actively pushing back against the injustices in their cities and nation.

In the following verses, God promises cleansing and restoration if they will follow these directives. When Jesus later says, “I desire mercy not sacrifice,” this idea is in the background. Yes, God commanded Temple sacrifices, but they weren’t the point. They were meant to be an expression of their devotion to God – devotion characterized by acts of mercy like defending the cause of those who cannot defend themselves.

The Church has experienced two major impacts in close succession. First, our normal patterns of worship have been profoundly disrupted (patterns that I deeply love and are incredibly important). Just as this is starting to return to normal, we’ve been confronted by cries of injustice. We may disagree with how these cries are being expressed or who’s being blamed, but we can’t deny that injustice exists in America.

As the Church returns to our worship spaces and our beloved forms of worship, let’s not forget to keep these directives in the front of our minds. God desires our worship, but even more, God has given us the responsibility to defend the oppressed around us, to take up the cause of the powerless, to plead the case of those with no voice.

As a practical step, we can’t fight injustice if we don’t know about it. The oppressed are often also the unheard. When they express their needs, louder voices jump in to tell them what they’re saying. In moving toward being a people of justice, let’s work on being a people who listen carefully and charitably for the cries of the distressed.