Sermon for the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A (2-8-26)

“Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet!”

There are moments when God does not whisper, but commands through prophetic voice— to speak clearly, boldly, without apology — because something has gone terribly wrong in the spiritual life of God's people. The people in Isaiah’s time believed they were faithful. They fasted. They prayed. They gathered for worship. And they assumed that these religious activities guaranteed God’s approval.

And yet God says: your worship has become a lie. You seek me daily — but ignore justice. You bow your heads — but exploit the vulnerable. You practice your religion — but you resist transformation. Isaiah here exposes a terrifying truth: that religious activity can become both a mask that hides spiritual corruption, and also a high-minded excuse to avoid loving action. And that is why this text speaks with such urgency into our present moment — especially as we confront the growing influence of Christian nationalism and the temptation to call for peace before we see evidence of God's justice.

Christian nationalism is not merely an unholy marriage of Christ and patriotism. It's a theological distortion. It's what happens when faith becomes entangled with empire — when the church begins to believe that the success or preservation of a nation is synonymous with the work of God.

And this isn't new. The church has faced this temptation before. Augustine of Hippo, writing after the fall of Rome, warned Christians not to confuse the City of God with the city of man. Nations rise and fall. Empires claim divine favor. But the kingdom of God cannot be reduced to any political order. Whenever Christians forget that distinction, our faith becomes idolatry.

Idolatry is giving ultimate loyalty to something that is not God. When flags function like sacred objects… When political and religious leaders are treated as anointed saviors beyond reproach…When we retreat into a belief that God can and will only act through our imperfect, human work...When defending our national or political identity becomes more urgent than loving our neighbor - even our neighbor who might be a political opponent - we have crossed from faithfulness into idolatry.

We've seen rhetoric from the President and others that dehumanizes immigrants and refugees - and ultimately leads to murder. Most recently we've seen his easy use of deeply racist imagery, which is itself rooted in the perceived sub-human status of Americans of African descent. We have seen truth distorted, elections undermined, and fear used as a tool of power - and an effective one at that. Because we have also seen many Christians defend these things — not reluctantly, but enthusiastically — framing political loyalty as spiritual faithfulness. Isaiah cries out: what kind of fasting is this!? Because the fast God chooses is not about securing dominance. It's about loosening burdens. Not protecting privilege — but freeing the oppressed. And not about cutting out our enemies, but drawing them in.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced a similar crisis in Nazi Germany when Christians fused nationalism with theology. He warned against what he called “cheap grace” — a faith that blesses power instead of challenging it. Bonhoeffer insisted that when the church aligns itself uncritically with authoritarian power, it ceases to be the church. And additionally, when the church fails to confront death-dealing power, it ceases to be prophetic. God’s revelation in Christ stands in judgment over every political system — including the ones we prefer.

And yet authoritarian temptation persists. Authoritarianism thrives on fear. It promises safety through control. It tells us that strength requires domination and that compassion is weakness. Christian nationalism often embraces this logic, reshaping Jesus into a figure of power rather than the suffering servant who washes feet and dies on a cross.

But the cross is the ultimate contradiction of empire theology. Empires proclaim victory through force. Christ reveals victory through self-giving love. Empires demand loyalty. Christ invites discipleship. Empires divide the world into allies and enemies. Christ commands love even for those who oppose us. This is the folly of the Cross. This is why today Paul tells the church in Corinth: Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Isaiah today calls us back to God's original plan: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice… to share your bread with the hungry… to bring the homeless poor into your house?” Notice how concrete this is. True worship is not national dominance. True worship is mercy embodied. And here is the hardest part: the prophet does not allow us to point fingers without examining ourselves.

Because idolatry is seductive. It feels righteous. It tells us that defending our tribe is defending God. It convinces us that power equals faithfulness. But whenever the church becomes more passionate about political victory than about justice, more concerned with cultural survival than with compassion, more committed to ideology than to truth (however inconvenient it might be to us) — the fast we practice ceases to be holy.

And so, Isaiah does what good prophets do: he calls us back. Not to neutrality — but to prophetic faithfulness. Not to silence — but to truth-telling. Not to despair — but to repentance. Because God gives a promise: “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn… you shall be called the repairer of the breach.”

Repairers of the breach. That is Christ's call for us in a divided nation. Not defenders of empire. Not chaplains to power. But witnesses to a kingdom that transcends every border and every ideology. The church is strongest when it refuses to be owned by any political movement. The church is most faithful when it speaks truth even to those it supports. The church shines brightest when it loosens burdens rather than tightening them. And the church reflects God's grace best when it can bear the hard work of repair and reconciliation.

So shout out, Isaiah says. Do not hold back. Name the idols. Resist the empire. Reject authoritarian fear. And begin to build an appetite for renewal and reunion while you act in love and witness. And follow only the crucified and victorious Christ, whose kingdom cannot be captured by any nation — only embodied through justice, mercy, and love.

Amen.