The Prophetic Critique
The prophetic critique is a recurring theme in the Old Testament that is taken up by Jesus and the early church. The prophets, messengers of God, critiqued their religious institution. Writing God’s words, they said God doesn’t want fancy worship replete with expensive offerings and sacrifices. God doesn’t want performative stuff only the rich can afford. God doesn’t want displays of wealth and power. God wants compassion, mercy, justice. God wants care for the poor, the orphaned, the widowed. God wants the liberation of the oppressed. The religious niceties, God can do without.
We see this critique throughout the Prophetic books in the Old Testament. Here’s a passage from Isaiah (1:11-17) that epitomizes the prophetic critique:
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls
or of lambs or of goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who asked this from your hand?
Trample my courts no more!
Bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation—
We see Isaiah’s critique in Jesus’ preaching. We see it in today’s gospel lesson where Jesus compares a rich man with no name who falls to Hades to a poor man named Lazarus who is lifted up to heaven.
Even in I Timothy 6 we see remnants of the prophetic critique. Pastors, shun wealth, avoid even the trappings of wealth. Pursue and preach righteousness – justice – and love and gentleness.
Jesus sums up the prophetic critique in the gospel of Matthew with a nutshell statement. A couple of times in that gospel he reinterprets Hosea 6:6, saying “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” The NASB puts it this way – “I desire compassion and not sacrifice.”
For a bit of time, I’d like to focus on the prophetic critique in a nutshell that Jesus gives because it tells us a lot.
In Matthew 9:13 and 12:7, Jesus seems to be quoting from Hosea 6:6 which says, “I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice.” Jesus doesn’t quote verbatim. Jesus changes Hosea 6:6 a bit. He says, “I desire compassion, not sacrifice.”
In Hosea 6:6, it is steadfast love for God being called for. But Jesus is calling for compassion toward others.
Again, in Hosea 6, God is saying I want you to love me and know me instead of your sacrifices and burnt offerings.
But Jesus, God in the flesh, says, I want you to love others, I want you to be merciful, to be compassionate toward others. I do not care about your sacrifices to me.
Sacrifice and burnt offerings were still the ideal form of worship in Jesus’ day. Jesus is saying who cares about your ideal form of worship? Just love others.
Is Jesus throwing out steadfast love of God in his version of the prophetic critique? Not exactly.
For Jesus, love of God and love of and care for others are tied at the hip, two sides of the same coin, indivisible.
Remember Jesus and his greatest commandment. Jesus sums up the whole of the Old Testament with these two mandates: Love the Lord God with your whole self and love others as yourself.
Jesus conflates love of God and love of others in his version of the prophetic critique. If you’re loving God, but not loving and caring for others, you’re missing something, and God is not pleased. That’s the prophetic critique. But the vice versa also holds true. If you love and care for others without loving God, with acknowledging God is in the love, the mercy, the compassion you are showing, you’re missing something, too.
Love of God and love of and care for others must go together.
My last point this morning comes from something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. And that is my unique circumstance of having grown up in the Evangelical world but now pastoring in a mainline church. These two worlds are very different. How they express their love and care for others is an example.
The Mainline world sees love and care for others as amounting to this: assuring people have their needs met as they live their lives. Love of others is tied to assuring people are treated justly and fairly and are helped to live safe and secure lives. If I love you, O stranger, I want you to experience a real sense of well-being. Well-being may include a spiritual connection to God, but that is for you to decide. I’m glad to share how I connect to God and hope that helps you. But I won’t push it.
The Evangelical world sees love of others as assuring people’s eternal salvation first and foremost. Because I love you, O stranger, I want to help you get right with God and have a place in heaven. I want you to accept Jesus and get saved, in others. Being saved will help not just your afterlife, but your life now. It will transform your sense of meaninglessness and emptiness into purpose and hope. You will know life more abundantly now in the spiritual sense if not in the material sense.
To me, as a church, we need both emphases. There’s a lot of hopelessness out there. There’s a lot of disconnect out there. There’s a lot of hurt and emptiness out there. Christ gives hope, connects us to God, eases the hurt and fills our emptiness. Christ saves us from existential and spiritual despair.
I get a weekly Substack called Graphs About Religion from the researcher and pastor Ryan Burge. Monday’s Substack looked at two unambiguous facts that data tells us time and time again. Burge introduces these facts by saying rarely is research data ever this clear. As research clearly shows, people who are religious self-describe as happier. And the more religious you are, the happier you describe yourself as being. Every bit of research shows this.
That’s good news, right? Why wouldn’t we want to share that?
We should feel freer in sharing that faith makes us happier. We shouldn’t be bashful as Christ-followers in sharing the good news of Christ with others. We don’t have to do it in domineering or exclusive ways. But seeing hurt and sharing the happiness found in Christ with others is part of being Christ-followers and is part of being the church.
How does this relate to the prophetic critique that we started with? How does it relate to the prophets and Jesus saying, religious faith first and foremost is about loving and caring for others?
Well, in loving and caring for others, as a community, we ought to begin with those who need love most. In the least, those who are uncared for and feel unloved should be at the forefront of our minds, our prayers, and our mission.
My prayer for CCP as I look toward my departure in a few weeks is that you will seek to love others beginning with those who feel the most unloved. That you will continue to show your care for others by sharing the good news of God’s love and care for all, especially those who need love and care most. I pray you will remember the essentials of loving God, living lives of faith, worship, and gratitude, and loving others, sharing Christ with those who need the love of Christ most. I pray you will embody Christ’s great commission, going into the world around you and making disciples of Christ.
We see this critique throughout the Prophetic books in the Old Testament. Here’s a passage from Isaiah (1:11-17) that epitomizes the prophetic critique:
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls
or of lambs or of goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who asked this from your hand?
Trample my courts no more!
Bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and calling of convocation—
I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove your evil deeds
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil;
learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove your evil deeds
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil;
learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.
We see Isaiah’s critique in Jesus’ preaching. We see it in today’s gospel lesson where Jesus compares a rich man with no name who falls to Hades to a poor man named Lazarus who is lifted up to heaven.
Even in I Timothy 6 we see remnants of the prophetic critique. Pastors, shun wealth, avoid even the trappings of wealth. Pursue and preach righteousness – justice – and love and gentleness.
Jesus sums up the prophetic critique in the gospel of Matthew with a nutshell statement. A couple of times in that gospel he reinterprets Hosea 6:6, saying “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” The NASB puts it this way – “I desire compassion and not sacrifice.”
For a bit of time, I’d like to focus on the prophetic critique in a nutshell that Jesus gives because it tells us a lot.
In Matthew 9:13 and 12:7, Jesus seems to be quoting from Hosea 6:6 which says, “I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice.” Jesus doesn’t quote verbatim. Jesus changes Hosea 6:6 a bit. He says, “I desire compassion, not sacrifice.”
In Hosea 6:6, it is steadfast love for God being called for. But Jesus is calling for compassion toward others.
Again, in Hosea 6, God is saying I want you to love me and know me instead of your sacrifices and burnt offerings.
But Jesus, God in the flesh, says, I want you to love others, I want you to be merciful, to be compassionate toward others. I do not care about your sacrifices to me.
Sacrifice and burnt offerings were still the ideal form of worship in Jesus’ day. Jesus is saying who cares about your ideal form of worship? Just love others.
Is Jesus throwing out steadfast love of God in his version of the prophetic critique? Not exactly.
For Jesus, love of God and love of and care for others are tied at the hip, two sides of the same coin, indivisible.
Remember Jesus and his greatest commandment. Jesus sums up the whole of the Old Testament with these two mandates: Love the Lord God with your whole self and love others as yourself.
Jesus conflates love of God and love of others in his version of the prophetic critique. If you’re loving God, but not loving and caring for others, you’re missing something, and God is not pleased. That’s the prophetic critique. But the vice versa also holds true. If you love and care for others without loving God, with acknowledging God is in the love, the mercy, the compassion you are showing, you’re missing something, too.
Love of God and love of and care for others must go together.
My last point this morning comes from something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. And that is my unique circumstance of having grown up in the Evangelical world but now pastoring in a mainline church. These two worlds are very different. How they express their love and care for others is an example.
The Mainline world sees love and care for others as amounting to this: assuring people have their needs met as they live their lives. Love of others is tied to assuring people are treated justly and fairly and are helped to live safe and secure lives. If I love you, O stranger, I want you to experience a real sense of well-being. Well-being may include a spiritual connection to God, but that is for you to decide. I’m glad to share how I connect to God and hope that helps you. But I won’t push it.
The Evangelical world sees love of others as assuring people’s eternal salvation first and foremost. Because I love you, O stranger, I want to help you get right with God and have a place in heaven. I want you to accept Jesus and get saved, in others. Being saved will help not just your afterlife, but your life now. It will transform your sense of meaninglessness and emptiness into purpose and hope. You will know life more abundantly now in the spiritual sense if not in the material sense.
To me, as a church, we need both emphases. There’s a lot of hopelessness out there. There’s a lot of disconnect out there. There’s a lot of hurt and emptiness out there. Christ gives hope, connects us to God, eases the hurt and fills our emptiness. Christ saves us from existential and spiritual despair.
I get a weekly Substack called Graphs About Religion from the researcher and pastor Ryan Burge. Monday’s Substack looked at two unambiguous facts that data tells us time and time again. Burge introduces these facts by saying rarely is research data ever this clear. As research clearly shows, people who are religious self-describe as happier. And the more religious you are, the happier you describe yourself as being. Every bit of research shows this.
That’s good news, right? Why wouldn’t we want to share that?
We should feel freer in sharing that faith makes us happier. We shouldn’t be bashful as Christ-followers in sharing the good news of Christ with others. We don’t have to do it in domineering or exclusive ways. But seeing hurt and sharing the happiness found in Christ with others is part of being Christ-followers and is part of being the church.
How does this relate to the prophetic critique that we started with? How does it relate to the prophets and Jesus saying, religious faith first and foremost is about loving and caring for others?
Well, in loving and caring for others, as a community, we ought to begin with those who need love most. In the least, those who are uncared for and feel unloved should be at the forefront of our minds, our prayers, and our mission.
My prayer for CCP as I look toward my departure in a few weeks is that you will seek to love others beginning with those who feel the most unloved. That you will continue to show your care for others by sharing the good news of God’s love and care for all, especially those who need love and care most. I pray you will remember the essentials of loving God, living lives of faith, worship, and gratitude, and loving others, sharing Christ with those who need the love of Christ most. I pray you will embody Christ’s great commission, going into the world around you and making disciples of Christ.
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