Isaiah is a prophet whom we often hear from in the season of Advent, since his
prophecies are seen as precursors to Jesus’ entry into our world. In today’s reading from Isaiah, we hear of
a lofty city that is brought down by the Lord, a city that ignores justice, a
city that ignores the cries of the poor. This
city is turned to dust that is trampled down by the footsteps of the poor and
the downtrodden.
With
all the missionary work I have done throughout the world, I truly believe that
the Lord does hear the cry of the poor. Yet,
as a nation & as Christians, we often struggle with what it means to hear
the cry of the poor. As
most of you know, I recently came back from a visit to Winnipeg, Canada, where
I spent time with friends whom I initially met when I worked full-time at a
soup kitchen & food bank there. It
was through those experiences that I had first hand interactions with the
homeless and street people, with prostitutes and drug addicts. I
left that experience in Winnipeg with more questions than answers. And
even though it’s not easy to struggle with the poor & to journey with them,
it is something with we are called to do as followers of Jesus. We
don’t have to look overseas or the large urban areas of our country to hear the
cry of the poor, as it is right here in our own community in Yazoo City. That is probably obvious to all of us.
So we
might ask ourselves today: How are we responding to the poor in our midst? Are
we creating a just society, or are we a lofty city that will be taken down by
the Lord?
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