The Chosen Fast

 “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” Luke 19:46

Jesus alludes to two different prophets in his “it is written,” both Jeremiah and Isaiah. 

Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed...for my house will be called  a house of prayer for all nations. I will gather still others to them besides those already gathered. Isaiah 56:1

Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another,  if you do not oppress the alien sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Jeremiah 7:4-7

Both passages make what is important perfectly clear.  There is woven into the very essence of creation His character of justice and righteousness and that is what matters.  Do not be deceived.  Religion does not matter. Sacrifices do not matter.  Obedience does matter.   

For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.”  

He is the plumb line, the standard.  Let me not fall into the Pharisaical peeking through my fingers during prayers at my neighbor, thanking God that I am not like the rest of men.  Rather let me fall humbly to my knees,”God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

And let us, those who bear His name, not be deceived by the layers upon layers of parsing and legislation and policy that we have heaped up over the years to define ourselves, drawing so many lines in the sand; let us not trust in these deceptive words.  Rather let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream and may we be found marching in the forefront rather than hunched over in the back, messing about with bumper stickers.