One of my favorite things about Isaiah is how he calls out the people of God for the injustice in their actions. I find a great example of this in chapter 5:8, which reads:
Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.
Passages like this remind me of the values of God and how they come into conflict with the values of the world. Where the world values looking out for yourself, doing what is in your own best interest, God is the God who looks out for all of his people, and sacrificially gives of himself to serve and love. What is wrong with purchasing the property next to you and building a larger home for yourself? Isaiah, almost irritatingly, forces us to ask the question, who is left out by this choice? Who is excluded?
No one likes to be asked these kinds of questions, because they demand that we be less self centered. Perhaps this is why we don't ask questions like these. May we embrace justice, and the common good, the way that our God does!
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