Key events in today’s reading:

• The Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)
• Invitation to Life (Isaiah 55:1-13)
• The Good News (Isaiah 61:1-11)
• New Heaven and New Earth (Isaiah 65:17-25)

Verse that stood out: “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday” (58:9-10)

Have you ever noticed how much fun it is to critique others? Almost every week I find myself chatting with friends about the previous weekend’s football games. We recall the good plays. Mostly we complain about the bad ones: calls that didn’t go our team’s way, the coach’s failure to manage the clock well, and what could have been if the team had just done what was obvious to all of us fans. The same kind of conversations happen around what’s happening at our workplaces, in our schools, and in our country. We’ve made complaining about life’s problems it’s own kind of sport.

My guess is sitting around and criticizing others has always been a lot of fun. Ancient leaders probably received as much Monday morning quarterbacking from their followers as ours do (although the Internet has taken all criticisms to a strange new level). Criticism, or better yet, critics do have a place in every society. The prophets were critical of the people they were preaching to. None of us want to live in a totalitarian regime in which criticism is forbidden (think North Korea). If the emperor has no clothes on, we want to be able to say it out loud. And yet, we have to remember, criticism by itself does little to make the world a better place.

Theodore Roosevelt, in an address similar to his famous “Man in the Arena” speech, put it this way, “Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger.”

Long before that, the prophet Isaiah promised “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday” (58:9-10).

Those whose lives shine in the darkness aren’t ones who point the finger of blame, but rather those who most consistently keep their hands busy serving their neighbors in love. Another prophet put it succinctly, “What does the Lord require of you? Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

I wonder today, what’s one way you can replace blaming with helping?

For tomorrow:

• Cover to Cover: Isaiah 66:2 – Jeremiah 9:19
• Key Passage: Jeremiah 1:1-10
• Verse of the Day: Jeremiah 1:5