Isaiah 58:10-14
10If you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
11The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
12Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.
13If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the Lord honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
14then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken…
Isaiah
The 66 chapters of Isaiah divide into three sections that are distinctive in content and in style:
• 1st Isaiah, mostly writings from Isaiah of Jerusalem, prior to Babylon exile: chapters 1-39
• 2nd Isaiah, during exile in Babylon: chapters 40-55. Includes "Comfort ye – every valley" from Handel's Messiah and other memorably poetic passages.
• 3rd Isaiah, after the exile: chapters 56-66. Back in town trying to rebuild physical, communal, and religious structures; attempts to restore meaning.
Historical Notes
Everyone didn't leave Jerusalem and Judah for Babylon; some stayed in Babylon instead of going back to Judah; following God's advice via Jeremiah, they continued to be good neighbors, to create sustainable living conditions that could carry people and land into the future.
Those who returned to Judah found themselves colonials of yet another empire: Persia this time.
For close to a hundred years after the exiles returned, Jerusalem mostly remained in ruins. As restoration began, rebuilding the temple especially concerned Haggai and Zechariah; Nehemiah focused on rebuilding city walls; Ezra's passion was restoring worship. In addition to definable structural concerns, they needed to reconcile social, economic, political, and religious divisions. During those years God's people "rediscovered" Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament that form the Pentateuch); as they read, studied, and lived by the counsel of the inspired texts, they became a People of the Book.
Today's Reading
Many post-exilic scriptures provide examples and models we can follow. This first reading from Third Isaiah outlines hope-filled, shalom-full urban renewal.
Last week Jeremiah reminded us God is God of exodus; God liberates us from slaveries of every kind and settles us in land that yields crops and community. As Jeremiah pointed out, God also is God of homecoming who gathers people from exile and dispersion (any of many literal or figurative diasporas) into safe settled places.
Isaiah 58:10a "If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted…" echoes last week when again we talked about Jeremiah and his emphasis on especially distributive justice, on social and economic equality, on making sure everyone has adequate food and housing.
Isaiah 58:12 "Then your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in."
Back in Jerusalem the temple was gone, the city was in disrepair, almost no one trusted much of anyone. They needed to rebuild physical infrastructure that would include streets, roads, meeting places, markets for sales and exchange; they needed to rebuild reliable human substructure that would include neighborhoods of real community and hope.
How many times have I mentioned God gave Israel the Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant after they'd been freed from slavery in Egypt? The commandments provide guidelines for staying free, starting with the overarching proclamation "No gods other than Yahweh," the God of love, hope, liberation, and justice. Like much of Jeremiah, Deuteronomy, and Luke, this scripture is neighborology where people trust God and one another.
Notice the map for rebuilding shalom includes faithful Sabbath observance.
Sabbath
Situations of coercion such as a job you detest that's the only real option, etc., offer almost no choice in what you do and how you act. Especially since the industrial revolution when even more output became mechanized, rationalized, automated and "means of production" became a buzzword, the planet literally never has stopped humming along, never quit turning out "stuff," some of it essential to existence, some of it non-essential or even superfluous.
Where We Live: SabbathIf you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs;
then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth.
Many post-exilic scriptures provide ideas we can use; restoration, hope, and homecoming are themes we need every day.
We know a whole lot about cities and communities that need rebuilding.
COVID and its ongoing fallout has made everyone aware of how fragile mental, emotional, and social well-being can be.
COVID has revealed even more, even deeper cracks along with great possibilities in a church we'd long known needed another re-formation.
Does God's advice through Isaiah offer helpful counsel and hope for our futures?
Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. … Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Deuteronomy 5:12,15
By the way, the actual Sabbath never changed from Saturday, the seventh day of the week, the final day of the original old creation [Exodus 20:1-17; Genesis 2:2-3]. The early church started a tradition of worship on Sunday the day of resurrection, first day of the week, start of the new creation.
With prohibitions on doing (working at!) something as simple as flipping a light switch – you even light the candles that usher in Shabbat before the resting day itself – "Sabbath" is a necessary time out, a literal ceasing from producing, counting, working, but not a time of laziness and shiftlessness. If you work in a fire, police, hospital, transportation, or other facility that needs to be open 24/7, you can designate and keep another time of sabbath. Please don't use your day off to go shopping, do that yard work, or cook in order to stockpile the freezer!
In the Spirit of the Exodus out of imperial slavery, sabbath is an opportunity to receive life as gift, to recognize existence as graced. In the shadow of a world consumed more and more by incessant production, purchasing, and using rather than thankful living… God commands us to slow down, to stop, and to keep sabbath.
No comments:
Post a Comment