Isaiah 64:6,  “But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousness’s [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

I remember as a child hearing an evangelist preach on Isaiah 64:6 and I recall how he dramatically described filthy rags, even showing us rags that were, well, filthy,  oily, greasy, muddy shoes wiped rags.  He stood there and held these filthy rags up in the air and  said all your good works, all your church attendance and tithe are nothing more than these filthy rags. You just as well hold these up to God as your ticket to heaven.  Well, bless his heart, I sure cannot deny that what he said was true indeed Ephesians 2:8-9 clearly tells us that it is by grace we are saved and that not of works lest any man should boast.

Still, I have always had a problem with this idea of good works being filthy rags.  Is that to say it does not matter whether we are good or bad? That going to church, teaching Sunday school, paying tithe are all meaningless filthy rags?

Well, I decided to end this question once and for all in my mind. So I examined this word for filthy rags in the Hebrew and found it was yebeged  ‘idim.  Yebeged comes from the root word beged which is merely the word for a garment, not a rag.  To us a rag is just an old piece of cloth used for dusty and cleaning.  A beged is sometimes rendered as a robe but most often as an inner garment and more specifically a lap garment or a garment that covers your lap (privates).  The next word is the one where we get the idea of filthy, it is the word idim which comes from a Semitic root word, an ancient Persian word ‘ed which means a period in the sense of a reoccurring incident.  By the time it reached the Hebrew it meant menstruation.  This filthy garment is really a garment worn by women during menstruation.

So the garment itself is not filthy in its original state it is clean. Yet it is a garment that has been made unclean as menstruation, according to Jewish law,  put a woman into a state of uncleanliness. So the picture the prophet is drawing here is that our good works our acts of righteousness are not filthy, they are clean, they are worthwhile and do bring pleasure to God’s heart.  In the context of this passage it is referring to the Jews who followed a righteous path, followed all the laws of God, performed all the ceremonies, kept and honored the feast but they did it just for ceremonial purposes, to win God’s favor, to bribe God.  This attitude caused these righteous acts to become unclean. All our wonderful good works, going to church every Sunday, teaching a Sunday school class, paying our tithe can really be an abomination to God if they are used for selfish purposes.  If they are used to win favor with God and perhaps persuade Him to grant some prayer request.

Yesterday our town was celebrating the Oktoberfest and as a bus driver for seniors and the disabled, I found it to be one those days when you are super rushed for an hour and then you just sit and wait. So during this down time I pulled my bus over to a curb next to a tree and began snacking on a can of nuts. I was suddenly aware of being watched. I look out the window of my bus parked next to a tree and there was this squirrel on his hind legs, twitching his nose at me. I held up a peanut and he scurried up the tree and just looked down at me. I grab a handful of nuts and toss then on what I hoped would have been the sidewalk but instead they all landed on the lawn which was buried with fallen leaves. All the nuts fall through the leaves where they could not be seen.

Undaunted the little beggar ran down the tree and with his two little paws, scraped back the leaves and then picked up one of the  nuts. He then held it in his two paws and begins chewing on it like a little child holding a banana with both hands talking bite after bite. All the while he is looking up at me with his little mouth moving in a stop and go action like a silent movie put on fast play. After he polishes off that nut, I tossed him another, this time a little closer to the bus. He dug past the leaves and picked up that nut and repeated his action while looking at me as if to say “Thank you, got any more.” Each time I tossed him another nut, it was closer to the van and as he picked up the nut, he kept getting closer to the bus and to me. Then he began to talk to me.

What, you don’t talk to squirrels? Don’t look at me like that. I know, get the net, get the net, the old Hebrew teacher finally snapped his cap.  But  we all talk to squirrels we just don’t expect them to answer. Yet, when you listen with your heart, you might begin to hear what they are saying and I heard this little guy say into my heart, “I didn’t want to get closer to you but I guess if I am to get my nut I must get closer. Our creator is telling you the same thing, that you treat Him the same way. If you don’t need any nuts you are satisfied to keep your distance, but when the winter approaches and you need all the nuts you can get you suddenly start to draw closer to the one who can supply the nuts.”

I have to admit my little furry friend was right, I tend to only get close to God when I need him to feed me. I was thinking how nice it would be if my new little friend would just come up to me to say, “Hi.”  I mean just to say “Hi” and not because he needed a handout. If he was not in need of his nuts, he would not even give me the time of day. Sometimes as I hear Christians talk about miracles, prosperity, healings, inner joy and peace, I can’t help but wonder if we are nothing but a bunch of squirrels who gather around God only because he has a can of nuts. Without those nuts, we would not even give Him the time of day.

You know it was really fortunate I had a can of nuts, otherwise my little buddy would not have paused to say “Hi.”  How nice it would be for him and his friends to come up and just say “Hi” during those times I don’t have a can of nuts. I wonder how God must feel when the only time He can get our attention and a simple Hi is when he dangles a can of nuts in front of us.  It seems we start to act cute and friendly to God only when we need something. Suddenly when our world collapses, we need to pay a bill, need a healing or some other favor from God it is then we start to pray in earnest, attend church,  pay our tithe and perform righteous acts.  Yet Isaiah is saying that righteous acts performed for these reasons are nothing but filthy garments.