A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC February 8, 2026. “Piece Us Together” series.

Texts: Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 5:17-20

Our guest preacher last week invited us into the ancient wisdom of Micah 6:8—to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. In response to that sermon, someone commented online: “Sad when preachers preach from the old fallen Old Testament. God speaks through Jesus and Jesus said he was to be our only teacher.”

I had to hold back from replying with a bit of pastoral snark: I guess you missed the day in class when Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

Jesus’ whole life is an embodiment of the righteousness the law seeks to teach and the justice the prophets longed to proclaim and enact. In Scripture, “law” isn’t a cold rulebook or a list of religious regulations. It’s God’s teaching for how a community actually lives—how neighbors treat one another, how power is exercised, how workers are paid, how the vulnerable are protected.

Jesus does not stand over the law and the prophets, correcting them. He stands within them, holding together what has too often been pulled apart—faith and life, prayer and practice, belief and behavior. Jesus does not discard the law and the prophets; he pieces them together, aligns them with flesh and breath and human relationships, and shows us what they look like when lived fully. Jesus comes to help us align our lives with the deep purposes of God so that peace with justice—what Dr. King called the Beloved Community—can begin to take shape among us.

That is why Isaiah 58 lands so powerfully today. Isaiah and Jesus are speaking the same theological language, even as they speak in different moments. And Isaiah does not ease into the message. He comes out of the gate strong:

“Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they want God on their side.”

That little phrase—“as if”—is a doozy.

Isaiah is describing a people who are deeply religious: faithful in worship, earnest in prayer, fluent in the rituals and language of faith—as if they were practicing righteousness, as if they had not forsaken God’s ordinances. This is not hypocrisy in the cheap sense. It is being faithful in form, but disconnected in practice. They want God near. They want God responsive. They want God on their side. But even as they do all the religious things—fasting, sackcloth, ashes—they forsake God’s ordinances—the Hebrew word is mishpat: meaning justice that treats people fairly and equitably. They are acting religious without making God choices, without doing justice.

In our current context, it would be very easy to take that “as if” and aim it outward. To point fingers at national leaders who wear big crosses around their necks, hold Bibles for photo ops, show up at public prayer services and then post vile, racist images, enact cruel policies, and unleash violent overreach. It would be easy for me, especially after what I’ve seen and heard recently, to let my anger form words that strike like a fist.

I recently returned from Minneapolis. I heard firsthand stories of families targeted by ICE—stories of fear that lives in bodies and homes, stories of trauma caused by aggressive and dehumanizing enforcement. I’ve stood at the sites where neighbors lost their lives as they sought to defend and protect others. I also heard anger—anger rooted not only in what is happening now, but in decades of suffering that has gone unseen, unheard, and unaddressed: unmet needs, unacknowledged harm, voices crying out long before the rest of us were paying attention.

Isaiah would tell the truth about all of that. Jesus would too. Truth-telling is part of faithfulness. But Scripture is equally clear that how we tell the truth matters.

Neither Isaiah nor Jesus believes that mockery creates peace. Neither believes that humiliation heals wounds. Isaiah is clear: the fast God chooses is not one that strikes with the fist or points the finger.

Walter Brueggemann reminds us that to be prophetic is not simply to condemn wrongdoing, but to name pain, to let suffering be seen and heard. That happens when we listen to stories we would rather avoid, when we allow another person’s fear or anger to interrupt our assumptions, when we allow the realities of human suffering to disrupt the status quo. Brueggemann writes, “The replacing of numbness with compassion… signals a social revolution.” Healing—personal or communal—does not begin with denial. It begins when pain is clearly named and acknowledged.

In Minneapolis, I had the opportunity to practice listening to stories I would have preferred to avoid. I heard how African American, African, and other immigrant communities struggle to maintain trust and true solidarity. As one of the few white people in the room, I heard stories of perhaps well-meaning, mostly white progressives who alienate Black communities over ideological issues while ignoring the chronic poverty and violent injustice they face every day. “They talk about unity, but want uniformity,” someone said. “They turn out in record numbers in this moment—but can they say the names of the young people in our community who are shot in the back on a regular basis?”

I found myself thinking about how the intersections of race, class, ideology, and power I encountered in Minneapolis echo right here in Washington, DC. And all I could do—and all I can do right now—is ask God to keep me open and available: open to listen, open to learn how my own heart and practice need to change, and open to receive guidance about how to lead us, as a congregation, in faithful response both locally and nationally.

That is what Isaiah calls for. And that is what Jesus fulfills.

Jesus does not abolish the law and the prophets; he embodies them. Grace, in Jesus’ life, is not God letting us off the hook. Grace is God drawing near—giving us strength to change, courage to repair, and patience to stay in relationship when walking away would be easier.

Righteousness, in Scripture, is not moral superiority. It is right relationship—with God and with one another. Justice is not an abstract ideal. It is fair and equitable treatment that restores dignity and life. Grace does not replace these. Grace makes them possible in real life.

Isaiah makes this concrete. The work of justice and righteousness he describes is not lofty or abstract. It looks like ordinary—and costly—faithfulness: loosening the bonds of injustice, undoing heavy yokes, letting the oppressed go free, sharing bread with the hungry, sheltering the unhoused poor, clothing the naked, and—this one cuts close—not hiding from your own kin.

Right now, there are many who have every right and reason to hide. Because if they leave their driveway, they risk being stopped, dragged from their car, and taken to a detention center without due process—or even a question about their citizenship. Because if they go to school, they might be used as bait to lure a parent into detention. Because if they go to worship, they may be rounded up simply for having brown skin or wearing a hijab.

But for many of us, hiding takes a different form. We hide when we scroll past suffering because it overwhelms us. When we tell ourselves someone else is better equipped to respond. When we protect our comfort instead of risking connection. When we retreat because we are not the ones being targeted.

Isaiah refuses to bless that retreat. And Jesus fulfills that refusal by drawing the circle of kinship wider and wider, putting his own life on the line in true solidarity and love.

Peace—real peace—does not come from choosing the right side or going through the motions of religion or shallow relationships that avoid telling the truth. It comes from aligning our lives with the way of God’s love as embodied in Jesus.

And that alignment is not abstract. It looks like courage without cruelty. Truth-telling without humiliation. Resistance without dehumanization.

In Minneapolis, I was struck by stories of people who are embodying exactly that. The resistance in that city right now is overwhelmingly nonviolent, creative, organized, and relentlessly resolute in defense of their neighbors. And my heart aches as I reflect on Renee Good’s last words: “I’m not mad at you.” And Alex Pretti’s… “Are you okay?”—spoken while trying to help a woman who had just been pepper-sprayed during an encounter with immigration agents. In moments of grave danger, these siblings resisted harm without surrendering their humanity—or anyone else’s.

That is strength shaped by love.

That is what we are called to embody. Isaiah dares to imagine what becomes possible when lives are aligned with God’s way of love: light breaking forth like the dawn, wounds healing, guidance emerging, communities rebuilt, streets restored for living. We—even we—can become repairers of the breach, restorers of what violence has torn apart.

Most of us won’t do this in grand gestures, but in daily choices. So maybe this week, we—all of us—can be intentional about our choices: to listen before reacting, to stay present when retreat feels safer, to use our resources—time, money, influence—to stand with neighbors rather than hide from them. Not selective solidarity, but embodied faithfulness.

These are the pieces that make for peace. And by God’s grace, they are the pieces Christ is still fitting together—in us, among us, and through us—for the healing of the world.