Pointing the finger...

Readings:  Isaiah 58.9b–14, Psalm 103.1–8, Hebrews 12.18–29, Luke 13.10–17

There’s a line in Isaiah today that really sticks out to me: “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil… then your light shall rise in the darkness.”

The pointing of the finger. Well, that’s something we’re rather good at, isn’t it? We’ve developed it into a national sport. Football, cricket, and pointing the finger. It’s everywhere. You see it in politics, on television debates, on social media. “It’s your fault!” “No, it’s your fault!” “Well, technically, it’s the EU’s fault, or the bankers’, or the people down the road with the funny accents.” And before long we’re so busy pointing the finger that we forget what our own hands are for. Spoiler: they were made for helping, holding, healing — not just jabbing at each other like a row of angry meerkats.

And Isaiah is right. Nothing good comes from the pointing of the finger. It doesn’t fix the problem. If your roof is leaking and you stand in the living room pointing upwards saying, “That plasterer is to blame!” … the water is still dripping into your cornflakes.

Meanwhile, in the Gospel, Jesus finds himself in hot water — as usual. He heals a woman who’s been bent over for eighteen years. And he does it on the Sabbath, in front of the synagogue ruler, who presumably had an entire drawer labelled “Complaints about Jesus” already bursting at the seams. The ruler points his finger — “You can’t do that today! Against the rules!” — but Jesus shrugs it off. He won’t let a technicality stop him from setting someone free.

That word — “free” — is important. Jesus sets the woman free from her affliction. Isaiah says, “loose the bonds of injustice.” And Hebrews, in its thunderous, terrifying way, talks about a kingdom that “cannot be shaken.” Put those together and you’ve got the heart of it: the Christian life is not about rules, or blame, or dividing people into neat boxes. It’s about freedom, justice, and a community that cannot be shaken by the latest wave of finger-pointing.

The trouble is, finger-pointing makes us feel powerful. It’s so much easier than actually solving anything. If I can blame someone else for why my life is hard, I don’t have to look too closely at my own habits, or the structures that keep some people rich and others poor. If I can blame my neighbour, I don’t have to ask questions about who’s really sitting on the offshore bank account. Divide and rule — it’s been working for emperors and millionaires since the dawn of time.

But here’s the good news. As Christians, we get to opt out. We don’t have to play the blame game. Instead, we get to play the blessing game. The psalm this morning says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” That’s an entirely different posture to finger-pointing. You can’t bless and jab at the same time — try it, you’ll poke someone’s eye out. To bless is to speak good, not evil. To give thanks, not resentment. To remember mercy, not manufacture scapegoats.

And do you notice the ripple effect? If I begin with blessing, it changes the way I look at my neighbour. I start to see someone who might need mercy as much as I do. I start to look for ways to use my hands to build up rather than to accuse. And maybe — just maybe — the arguments that divide us begin to lose their sting.

Now, don’t get me wrong. None of this is easy. Hebrews describes God as “a consuming fire.” Which is a terrifying way of saying: holiness burns up all the rubbish we like to cling to. The grudges, the resentments, the muttered “send them home” or the sneered “how dare you say that.” When God’s fire gets hold of us, the finger-pointing turns to ash, and we’re left with open hands. That’s scary. But it’s also glorious.

Because, if we dare to let go of the blame game, we might just find that we’re free. Like that woman in the synagogue — suddenly standing tall after eighteen years of being bent double. Can you imagine how the world looked to her? She’d spent almost two decades staring at the floor, seeing only dust and feet and sandals. And then Jesus lifted her up, and suddenly she saw faces again. She saw the sky. She saw the horizon. She was restored to community.

That’s what freedom feels like. And that’s what our community needs — not more fingers wagging across the street, but more hands reaching out in blessing.

So, what might that look like for us? Well, I think it means resisting the temptation to join in the shouting match, however loudly it’s conducted. It means gently reminding each other that blessing is stronger than blame. It means finding the small, ordinary ways to use our hands well — cooking a meal, offering a lift, listening without rushing to judgment.

And maybe it even means poking fun at ourselves when we’re tempted to jab a finger. Perhaps next time you’re in full rant mode — whether it’s about the council, or the buses, or the state of the world — you might stop, look at your hand, and say, “Well, would you look at that. I’ve been caught red-handed!” And then, instead of wagging it, maybe turn it palm-up, and offer it in blessing.

Because in the end, Isaiah was right. The light doesn’t rise when we jab each other. The light rises when we bless each other. When we stop staring at the dust, and start lifting our eyes to the horizon. When we let the fire of God burn away the rubbish and leave us free, standing tall, children of a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

So let’s put our fingers away. And let’s use our hands for better things.  Amen.