“SNOW JOBS HUMAN AND DIVINE”

ISAIAH 1:1, 10-18

Isa 1:1  The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

10  Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

11  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.

12  When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;

13  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.

14  Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.

15  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.

16  Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,

17  learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

18  Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

It’s called a snow job.  That’s when someone tries to deliberately confuse and deceive you.  Bill Cosby gave a good example of a snow job in one of his monologues. In the monologue he talks about a mother who catches her 4 year old son with his hand in the cookie jar. The mother gives the toddler a stern look and then says, “Didn’t I tell you not to eat any cookies before dinner?”  While holding the cookie out in front of him the toddler replies, “Yes, mama, but I was only getting it for you.”

That’s a snow job and it isn’t just children who do it.  Adults do it too.

Jesus didn’t believe in snow jobs.  That’s because he was a man of integrity.  So, he didn’t play games.  He didn’t pull any punches. He always practiced what he preached. 

You can see that Jesus was a man of integrity from one end of the gospels to the other.  Just ask the disciples.  Jesus could have given them a snow job when he told them to follow him.  He could have promised them fame and fortune, but he didn’t.  Instead he told them that if they followed him their lives would be difficult and at times dangerous. Jesus could have also given the Pharisees a snow job, but he didn’t. When Jesus disagreed with them he told them exactly what he thought.  He told them exactly what he thought even though he knew it would only get him into more and more trouble.  You can also see that Jesus was a man of integrity by looking at what he said and did in the hours leading up to his death on the Cross.  Instead of striking back at his enemies when they beat him up with whips and beat him down with insults, he turned the other cheek.  Not only that but when he finally got to the Cross the first thing he said was, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.  Jesus forgave the people who inflicted all that pain and suffering on him.

Jesus was a man of integrity.  A lack of integrity was the problem that Isaiah faced when he began his prophetic ministry.  On the surface the people of his day were good and holy. While they were in the Temple they made all the right sacrifices.  They said all the right  prayers.  They kept all the right holy days.  Everything they did in the Temple though was just a great big snow job.  That’s because once they left the Temple and went home they were anything but good and holy.  They didn’t do what God wanted them to do.  They did what they wanted to do. 

That lack of integrity is why Isaiah uttered those ominous words that day in the Temple.  I don’t think Isaiah was smiling when he said to them, “Hear the word of the LORD…What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?...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.”

The words that Isaiah uttered that day in the Temple make it clear that God doesn’t appreciate or approve of anything that shows a lack of integrity.  So here’s a question for you.  What do you think God would say to us today?  Do you think there’s a lot of integrity out there these days?  I don’t see a lot of integrity out there.  You don’t see it in the professional athletes. You don’t see a lot of it in the business world. You don’t see it in a lot of politicians.  You also don’t always see it in people who are religious.

Let’s see.  This past week Barry Bonds broke the homerun record under a cloud of suspicion.  There is a lot of evidence that he cheated. Not much integrity there. This past week Gregory Reyes, the CEO of Brocade Communications was convicted of illegally backdating stock options worth millions of dollars.  Not much integrity there either.  Then there’s Randall Cunningham, the former Congressman from California.  He’s in jail now because he was caught accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors.  Not much integrity there either.  Or how about Pastor Ted Haggarty?  Last fall Pastor Haggarty resigned as the head of the National Association of Evangelicals.   Why?  Because while he was lobbying for “family values” Pastor Haggarty was also involved with a male prostitute and buying crystal meth from him.  Does that sound like integrity to you?  It doesn’t sound like integrity to me.

Now it would be one thing if these were just a few isolated incidents, but you and I know they’re not.  I could keep us here for the next couple of hours with example after example of people who did something that showed a serious lack on integrity.  It isn’t just people in high places either.  You see it in your every day life as well.  When I was a pastor in Maine many years ago I did a wedding for a young woman in the church.  After the wedding I was invited to the wedding reception. Imagine how shocked I was when three or four teenagers from my Youth Ministry sat down at my table with beers in their hands.  Imagine how shocked I was when I discovered that the father of the bride was the one who bought those beers for them.  Unfortunately, things like that happen every day.  Do you remember when you used to shake someone’s hand and it meant something?  Today it often doesn’t mean a thing.

Things haven’t changed much since Isaiah uttered those stern words to the people in the Temple. The situation today can be illustrated by looking at what happened one day shortly after a congregation bought a saloon.  The congregation bought the saloon so they could use it for their new sanctuary.  As soon as they passed the papers they went to work.  They tore out the bar.  They put in stained glass windows.  They hung shiny new chandeliers from the ceiling. They installed new pews and gave the entire place a fresh coat of pain.  Somehow though, in the hustle and bustle of getting the new sanctuary ready a parrot from the old saloon got left behind.  So, when the big day finally arrived the parrot was right there sitting in the rafters.  When the pastor sat down the parrot squawked, “New owner! New owner!”  The people in the pews chuckled. When the choir marched down the center aisle the parrot squawked, “New floor show! New floor show!”  The people in the pews chuckled again. Then the parrot looked at the congregation and squawked, “Same old crowd! Same old crowd!”  The people in the pews didn’t chuckle.

I think of us would agree that integrity is in short supply these days.  The situation isn’t hopeless though.  There are some things that we can do that will bring integrity back into our places of labor and our places of leisure.  There are some things that we can do that will bring integrity back to Wall Street and Main Street, to the State House and the White House and our schools and our homes.

First of all we need to do something about our God of love.  Actually, the problem isn’t so much our God of love as it is our complete and absolute focus on that God of love. Unfortunately, that complete and absolute focus on God’s love makes it easy for people to loose their sense of integrity.  You begin to say to yourself, “Well, if God’s going to love me anyway then I don’t really have to worry about doing the right thing here.” 

The way to stay off that slippery slope is to balance that God of love with the God of justice; the God who watches what we do and does hold us accountable for what we do; the God that Isaiah talked about that day in the Temple.

That God can be seen in one of my favorite stories.  It’s a story about a man who was hired to paint a church.  While he was painting the side of the church the man said to himself, “You know if I thin this paint down a little, I’ll have enough to paint my house.”  So, that’s what he did.  The next day while he was painting the front of the church the man said to himself, “You know if I thin this paint down a little more, I’ll have enough to pain my garage.”  So, that’s what he did.  The next day while he was painting the other side of the church the man said to himself, “You know if I thin this paint down a little more, I’ll have enough to paint another house and make even more money.” So, that’s what he did.  That night while the man was in bed there was a loud clap of thunder that woke him up.  Outside the wind was blowing and the rain was coming down hard.  “Oh no,” the man exclaimed.  “The church!”  In no time at all the man was running to the church in his bathrobe and slippers.  As soon as he got there he was horrified to find the paint running down the sides of the church.  Just then there was another loud clap of thunder and a voice from the clouds cried out, “Repaint!  And thin no more!”

The best way to stay off that slippery slope that leads you away from integrity is to worship not only the God of love but the God of justice who watches what we do and does hold us accountable for what we do.  If you’re already on that slippery slope then the thing to do is go back to the words that Isaiah spoke that day in the Temple.  You’ll notice that those words begin on a harsh note but end on a note that is hopeful. “Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow…” 

What you have here is what could be called a divine snow job. Unlike our human snow jobs that are meant to deceive, God’s divine snow job wipes the slate clean.  It turns you around and gives you another change.  In order for that to happen though you have to be honest.  You have to be honest with yourself and the God who created you.

You have to do what Kelly Woodward did a couple of years ago.  Kelly Woodward lives in Vernon, Connecticut in the same house her parents lived all the years they were married.  Four years ago Kelly Woodward was cleaning out the attic when she discovered a book that her parents took out from the local library.  Unfortunately, the book was a little over due - 96 years overdue to be exact. Now, the fine for returning that book late could have been $686 dollars.  The fine would have been even more than that if you applied the fines as they were increased over the years.  Kelly Woodward though didn’t let that fine stop her from doing the right thing.  She brought the book back and the library board was so excited to get the book back and so impressed with her honesty that they waived the fine.  Not only that but they put the book of poetry and plays in a case set aside for special memorabilia.

That’s what God does when we’re honest.  God wipes the fine away.  God rejoices and responds with a divine snow job that wipes away our human snow jobs and for that we can give thanks.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

August 12, 2007