{"id":68902,"date":"2020-01-22T13:45:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T11:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=68902"},"modified":"2023-08-16T09:58:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T06:58:25","slug":"comfort-the-afflicted-and-afflict-the-comfortable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/comfort-the-afflicted-and-afflict-the-comfortable\/","title":{"rendered":"Comfort The Afflicted And Afflict The Comfortable"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[476,451,391,836],"acf":{"old_id":"68902","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33992,"related_cahpter":"400","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"God\u2019s connection is not to big buildings, or their funders, but to those who suffer the abuse of a corrupt system of power and wealth","content":"

In the final chapter of this glorious book, Isaiah circles back to his core message of priorities and hope. As he has stated time and time again, the human perversity in religion is to shift faith from ultimate relationships of love and justice to those of power and pomp. Rather than acknowledge that life and the universe are beyond our control, that we are creatures participating in a vast and awesome creation, we try to use religion as a tool to domesticate the cosmos, to bend it to our will and ego. Elaborate sanctuaries that cost tens of millions of dollars (or, in ages past, consumed the lives and bodies of thousands of slaves), clergy clothed in costly and gaudy outfits that look more at home in a Renaissance Faire than they would in the presence of Moses, or Isaiah, or Rabbi Akiva, and gigantic government funded bureaucracies that legislate who can marry, who gets buried, and whose rabbi\u2019s salaries come from tax revenue \u2013 these are the perversions of the religious impulse, its ultimate betrayal.<\/span><\/p>\n

And this is not Isaiah\u2019s vision of faith. On this point, he is quite clear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus said the Lord:<\/span>
\n<\/span>The heaven is My throne<\/span>
\n<\/span>And the earth is My footstool:<\/span>
\n<\/span>Where could you build a house for Me,<\/span>
\n<\/span>What place could serve as My abode? \u2026<\/span>
\n<\/span>Yet to such a one I look:<\/span>
\n<\/span>To the poor and brokenhearted,<\/span>
\n<\/span>Who is concerned about My word.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We would do well to remember that priority. God\u2019s connection is not to big buildings (or the funders who use their money to give prominence to their names). No building can contain the God of Israel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What does provide a home for God? The poor and brokenhearted. In the heart of those who suffer the abuse of a corrupt system of power and wealth, there Israel\u2019s God lodges. In the blistered feet of homeless refugees, there God\u2019s focus lies. Children so poor they can\u2019t count on breakfast, or separated from their families by economic and political coercion \u2013 these children cluster at the center of God\u2019s concern.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The business of religion is to \u201ccomfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable\u201d (in the words of the American journalist Finley Peter Dunne). The trappings of religion are of value only to the degree that they help us to circumcise our hearts and unstiffen our necks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Otherwise \u2026 well, we all know what happened to the Temple.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Comfort The Afflicted And Afflict The Comfortable","main_caption":"God\u2019s connection is not to big buildings, or their funders, but to those who suffer the abuse of a corrupt system of power and wealth","main_caption_size":"2","sub_caption":"","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68902"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117194,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68902\/revisions\/117194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}