The lessons today cover a wide range.  At first, it seems like Isaiah is one of those people who really doesn't like worship.  Isaiah seems out to put the fear of God into the people of God.  Some centuries later, Paul tries to remind the people of God that faith is the gift most desired, and freely granted, by God.  And the beginning words of Jesus, in the gospel according to Luke, are "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."  Where is it all leading?  Let us pray.
Lord our God, you have shown your power through the ages.  You gave your chosen people manna in the wilderness.  You sent your son, Jesus, to lead them into a new future.  And you continued, through the 12 apostles and through your servants to this day, to remind the world of your love.  Grant that we might be faithful witnesses to you, bringing your love into all that we do, to all whom we see, to every work done in your name.  Amen.  Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
One of the things that continues to amaze me is the regularity with which warnings are put out down in the states.  Announcements are made that there has been a threat - we can't tell you just who made it, or what they threatened, but take our word for it there has been a threat.  We are raising the warning level to yellow, or orange, or even red, so be afraid, be very afraid. 
There are some who seem to take those threat warnings very seriously, and find their lives consumed by fear of an unknown danger.  People have been known to stay home out of fear, to put off travel because of the warnings, to even stay away from the places they love best.  Then there are others who go about as they did before, flying in commercial airliners, going up in tall buildings, seeming to have no fear - but to have something else filling their lives.
In the time of Isaiah, the world was a violent place.  Not as we know it, with car bombs, and buildings being blown up, and movies filled with violence.  It was a world where if one king liked the land of another, and was able, he simply took it over, and he killed everyone in the way.  It had the violence of the killing of animals for offerings to the gods, and when Isaiah says, in the words of the Lord, "Your hands are full of blood" - he meant it literally.
But look at the remedy Isaiah suggests: "Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."  Isaiah says God is tired of ritual for the sake of ritual.  Who cares if the altar hangings have red polkadots, and the priest is wearing a fluorescent orange robe?  Who cares how the church looks?  What is the church doing, is the church doing good -  that is what counts.  And we know that the only way we can do good in the name of our Lord is through faith.  Paul wrote, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  But when he goes on, Paul doesn't use the word "faith" as a noun, something you get, or achieve.  Paul uses faith as a verb.  "By faith Abel offered to God" - "By faith Enoch was taken" - "By faith Noah, warned by God, respected the warning" - "By faith Abraham obeyed."
Faith is not something you get, then you walk around better because of it.  Faith is something you have, and you do, and you are better and the world is better because of that.  There are many examples of faith in the bible, and two of them mean the most to me.  Mary had faith.  It wasn't a passive faith - it may seem that way, as she accepted the blessing from God of bearing his Son, changing her life completely.  But I wonder about how the faith of Mary helped for the next 30 years, shaping the child who became the man, Jesus.  And what example of faith did Jesus see in his father, Joseph, who gave up the chance to have descendants of his own and instead became husband to Mary, and earthly father to Jesus?
The world in which Jesus lived was not much different from that in which Isaiah had lived.  In some ways it was safer. The Romans had taken over the land, and they also policed it to a certain degree, and there was no war going on.  Yet still, there was fear.  The Roman government was not exactly benevolent.
They demanded high taxes, they demanded worship of the emperor, and they demanded to be feared.  And the life expectancy was still low - no health plan or care for the aged. If you became sick with a serious disease you were more likely to be declared unclean and sent away from everyone else, until you became well.  They didn't even know for sure what leprosy was, and a bad case of acne was liable to get a person declared a leper and sent to live with the others.

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