Is. 58:9b-14

This follows directly from God’s insistence that justice be the context for worship. Even good ritual is sullied by injustice. It has the chilling notion that prayers go unanswered due to injustice. Typical of the OT, words of alarm are followed by words of hope.

Now, if justice is central, the prayers are heard (v.9). Not only active oppression but even actions of contempt are not to be countenanced, as well as speaking evil, a dominant mode of discourse on the internet. The series on conditional promises then point to a better day. The images are worth separate mention, but look at them as a series, light, not gloom, a watered garden, repairer of the breach (  Dr Schuller sent  a note to President Clinton on just this phrase), Sabbath as delight, riding on the heights of the earth. One could do well selecting one and working a sermon around the individual image.

Sabbath itself, including worship as honoring it, could be a fruitful topic for sermon or classroom, or private devotions.

Of course, this good open us to a discussion, a serious one, of justice and its connection to religious thought and life. I am afraid that we are substituting current notions of justice as popular policy proposals or bowing to the current mania for identity politics.