Isaiah 58 and why my puritanical grandmother is my new hero

Typically when I start to mull everything that's "wrong" with the church of my childhood, I think of my late grandmother.

She was every stereotypical thing you've ever heard about the church of Christ. She abhorred music in worship. She would literally stop on the side of the road during vacation and break bread rather than miss taking the Lord's Supper on Sunday. She would shake her head and click her tongue at the Baptists, who had it all wrong and were doomed to eternal damnation. The Catholics barely registered on her radar, they were so far gone. I remember hiding for hours in mortification in a far room of her house when the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons came knocking on her door. She would invite them in with an accommodating smile and, after offering them water or Sanka, show them to a seat and extend a listening ear. And when they finished their testimonies, she pulled out her own tattered Bible and cleared her throat, and then God help them.

She was judgmental. She was a racist. She was embarrassing. She was not gentle. She was......kind of mean and abrasive, actually.

But she was something else, too. She was a servant. She worked--and I mean worked--with service organizations for as far back as I can remember. As we sort through her belongings, our biggest puzzle is what to do with the hundreds of Lion's Club pins that keep piling up. She stood in the rain at football games, selling Razorback programs to benefit the needy. She was a widow who took care of other widows, laughing off the people who treated her as someone who should be taken care of and not even noting the irony. She didn't shy away from an opportunity to help someone just because it was inconvenient. She invited us grandkids along to wave programs at a game or serve catfish at a benefit for the blind, but she never to my knowledge limited her time in service because she "felt called to spend more time with her family."

She would have confirmed in a flash (if you happened to ask) that no one outside of her church was going to heaven, but she would not let someone she disagreed with be hungry or helpless or marginalized when they had a physical need.  She did not put conditions on charity or mercy. She might have believed that the person she was helping was on an irretrievable path to hell because of a wrong belief or a specific sin, but she understood that for the time being, we're all on this earth together. She saw value in partnering with people unlike her to make this life more livable, even for those she thought were furthest from God.  My Granny was a woman who staked her salvation on being right, and yet she served without discrimination because she understood that this is what people do for each other.

For the vast majority of my life, I gave this woman and people like her exactly zero credit. I have dismissed much of my grandmother's religion and even at times have pitied people like her who are just so wrong about the gospel. (I am living proof that knowledge puffs up.) But here's something that my Granny and her people didn't miss about the gospel: Doctrine doesn't trump service.

This week I have seen Christians unite and rally. I have witnessed evangelical Christians actually coming together, using blackmail in the form of withholding aid from children in poverty to keep an upper hand against the LGBT community. I have heard cheers of triumph from a church that would rather let a kid starve than see a gay person get a job within a Christian organization. I've seen Christians celebrate over the death of someone who seemed so full of hate, with utter disregard to the fact that God so badly wanted this person--as much as he wants me. As much as he wants any of us. My heart is open and bleeding, and I am realizing that even my grandmother's version of Christianity was better than this. She might have had to grit her teeth to get past the dirty work of serving people she thought were the worst of sinners, but she never believed having all the right answers gave her a free pass to lord it over people she thought were wrong. She missed a lot, but bless her. She got this right. Even people who realized exactly what she thought of them couldn't deny that she would look them in the face, or that her acts of sacrifice spoke louder than her (hopefully unspoken, if we were lucky) words. And though her theology wasn't exactly good news to a lot of people, she brought actual good news to people in the form of food and aid and friendship every day. And for the life of me, I cannot help but think it was ultimately credited to her as righteousness.

It's been a discouraging couple of weeks. Our adoptive journey seems to be on hold as we learn to trust God and his timing rather than scrambling to figure out the right path, but we are learning something new. There is so much other work to be done. As we become more desperate for God to reveal himself, we subsequently become more desperately willing to seek him. Our kid is out there somewhere, and we'll find her, but in the meantime we're learning how to love people better. We're increasingly drawn the marginalized, and for some reason we're surprised to actually find God there. The small and disputed sections of scriptures we've gotten so hung up on are seeming so much less important than the promises, because there is honest-to-goodness good news here. Isaiah 58, for example, gives us beautiful permission to just help others:

Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. 

This is the good stuff. This is the kind of stuff I want my own children to live for. You guys. Just simply helping people who need it will heal us. Spending an afternoon lightening the burden of a single mom? Therapeutic against resentment. Handing a meal to a homeless guy? Soothes prejudice. And I can't help but dream that this kind of unrestricted love would go a long way toward rebuilding some bridges we've burned with the world. Maybe it's time we shut out mouths, and for just a little bit let our hands and feet do the talking. There are some ways, I cannot believe I am saying this, in which we could really stand to reclaim our roots. My Granny. She got it.

1 “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.

Shout aloud! Don’t be timid.

Tell my people Israel of their sins!

2 Yet they act so pious!

They come to the Temple every day

and seem delighted to learn all about me.

They act like a righteous nation

that would never abandon the laws of its God.

They ask me to take action on their behalf,

pretending they want to be near me.

3 ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.

‘Why aren’t you impressed?

We have been very hard on ourselves,

and you don’t even notice it!’

“I will tell you why!” I respond.

“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.

Even while you fast,

you keep oppressing your workers.

4 What good is fasting

when you keep on fighting and quarreling?

This kind of fasting

will never get you anywhere with me.

5 You humble yourselves

by going through the motions of penance,

bowing your heads

like reeds bending in the wind.

You dress in burlap

and cover yourselves with ashes.

Is this what you call fasting?

Do you really think this will please the Lord?

6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;

lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free,

and remove the chains that bind people.

7 Share your food with the hungry,

and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them,

and do not hide from relatives who need your help.

8 “Then your salvation will come like the dawn,

and your wounds will quickly heal.

Your godliness will lead you forward,

and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.

9 Then when you call, the Lord will answer.

‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.

Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!

10 Feed the hungry,

and help those in trouble.

Then your light will shine out from the darkness,

and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.

11 The Lord will guide you continually,

giving you water when you are dry

and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like an ever-flowing spring.

12 Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.

Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls

and a restorer of homes.

Isaiah 58:1-12