Tag: Divine Light

What Now?: Love is Born from Faith

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Faith and love are intimately connected in the Christian’s life. To have faith in God is to love God; to love God is to have faith in God. How could one have faith in God and not also love God and what God loves? There’s really no argument about the deep and abiding correlation between the two. However, in this intimate connection a confusion occurs between the two, making them synonyms, one able to replace the other. If this is so then one can love God first prior to faith, making faith a product of love. While this seems a rather logical and benign claim, it ignores human history with God and what all of scripture tells us.

The truth of it is this: we don’t inherently love God, at least not the God who self-discloses as God. We do love the god we make up in our heads and hearts, the one we wallpaper on to God. But do we, apart from faith, really love God for the sake of God? No. We don’t. God in God’s own self is too full of awe, God’s love for us is beyond comprehension, God’s actions and mission collide with and contradict much of what we consider reasonable. Jesus, God’s own son, God of very God, the Word of God incarnate, was rejected by his own people because of these characteristics of divine love flowing in and through him to the people. We like to think we’d be different; I promise you, we wouldn’t be.

However, there’s good news here, and Romans highlights it for us: love is born from faith; to love is faith manifesting itself. And, according to Romans, faith is a gift that is given to us by God in the hearing (however one “hears”) the proclamation of Christ crucified and raised so that we may be justified and made righteous by faith and sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this basis that Paul works from in the last 1/3 of the letter when he shifts to exhortations of right and good Christian praxis in the world.[ii] It is faith established first that affords Paul the space and foundation to exhort the Romans to love with their whole mind, heart, strength, and soul. It is faith, for Paul, that informs and causes loving deeds that are truly about the beloved and not about the one who does the deeds; it is this faith inspiring love that fulfills the law.

Romans 13:8-14

Halfway through Chapter 13, Paul exhorts the Roman Christians,

Owe nothing to no one, except to love one another. For the one who loves has made full the other law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not kill,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love works not evil for the neighbor; therefore, love is the fullness of the law (vv8-10).

Paul has already anchored the Roman Christians in their justification with God by their faith in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit apart from any work, thus fulfilling the entire first tablet of the Big Ten. Now, he turns to the second tablet, the ethical portion, the commands concerning neighbor. First, the Roman Christians were to avoid being in debt to anyone: temporally and spiritually. They were to pay off what was owed to anyone and avoid participating in the obligations of patronage where one’s existence was dependent on another’s wealth and power, potentially bringing the Roman Christian into conflict with their new community of the body of Christ.[iii] According to Paul, the only thing that the Roman Christian should have as debt is the debt of love and corresponding loving deeds toward and for the neighbor.[iv]

For the Roman Christians, to have faith and, consequently, declare that God is trustworthy and truthful means that those whom God loves the Christian loves, too. One cannot declare God truthful and trustworthy, receive divine grace and mercy, and then deprive those things to the objects of God’s love, the neighbor, “your” neighbor. This is so because faith in God produces love of God, to love God means to love that which and those whom God loves; therefore, if the logic is logicing, then to love God is to love the neighbor and to love the neighbor is to love God.[v] This is why Paul can exhort the Roman Christian to be in debt to others in love, because love born of faith is always looking to serve the beloved. This is also why Paul can boldly declare that love both does not do evil and—all by itself—is the fulfilling of the law, it is how the law is made full (not just once but everyday).[vi]

Why?

Because who, in their right mind, would do anything (intentionally) to harm the one whom they loved? Would one betray one they loved? Would one take the life breath of the one they loved? Would one deprive the one they loved of material goods necessary to live? Would one reduce the one they loved to their possessions? Would one do anything directly or indirectly evil to the one whom they loved? While accidents happen in the life of the Christian and these accidents can impact the ones the Christian loves, what is being addressed here is the intention and impact of the Christian’s actions toward the neighbor, toward the other who is also the apple of God’s eye. Therefore, love cannot intentionally do evil to the neighbor, and, more than the absence of doing evil it proactively provides for the well-being of the neighbor.[vii] (Because there is evil in not acting when and where one can.)

This is why Paul then beseeches the Roman Christians to wake up and lay aside works of darkness and put on the armor of the light. He writes,

Also this, having considered the season, that [it is] already the hour for you to wake up out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we [first] believed. The night is almost gone, but the day has come near. Therefore, let us throw off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of the light. Let us walk decently as in days, not in wasteful celebration and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the coveting of the flesh (vv11-14).

Both knowing and being made aware of the impact of their actions toward the neighbor should (and must!) awaken the Roman Christian into the light of exposure and cause them to change their ways, to repent, to turn, and to press more into their faith[viii] that justifies, eager to be molded into those who are like and represent Christ in word and deed, to the glory of God. Paul is eager for Christians to WAKE UP,[ix] act (at all times[x]) as if they are in the light[xi] seen by all,[xii] and to see how important it is, in their present moment, to act according to the reign of God and resist the impulses of the kingdom of humanity privileging status and power at the expense of the livelihood of the neighbor.[xiii] For when the neighbor is thought of and considered, is prioritized, when their needs are met (in whatever form those needs manifest) then surely God is and will be praised and everything comes full circle: loving deeds born of faith return and nourish the very faith from which they come as the one who believes witnesses and participates in the mission of God going forward to bless the people of the earth, the continued fulfillment of the promise given to Israel through Abraham and Sarah. For Paul, the love born from faith curtails selfish desires[xiv] that thrust the Christian further into indebtedness and/to darkness and prioritizes another’s life, love, and liberation.[xv] It is through faith manifesting as loving deeds for the well-being of the neighbor to the glory of God that the Christian’s allegiance to God and God’s reign is displayed, an allegiance that cannot be shared with the kingdom of humanity.[xvi]

Conclusion

When Paul exhorts the Roman Christians toward love, it is not an exhortation to be nice or kind. It is not about offering a smile or being polite, as great as those things are for human well-being. It is not even an exhortation to the absence of doing harm (even though that is clearly pictured). What Paul is exhorting the Roman Christians toward is a love that actively seeks and brings to fruition the well-being of the neighbor, a love born of faith that brings the very good to those who have not the very good. And by the “very good” I don’t strictly mean the proclamation of Christ (although this is a very good thing). I mean to reach back further to a time when God created everything and called it very good (Gen 1), I mean to bring (in deed) the goodness of the mission of God that results in the robust provision for the neighbor. Thus, to love, according to Paul, is not easy. It’s hard; this is why he speaks of putting on the armor of the light.[xvii] To love the way God loves will square us off and bring us face to face with the anger and resentment of the kingdom of humanity that thrives off death, indifference, and captivity, the kingdom that hates the light preferring the darkness instead (Jn 1). We need the armor of the light as we participate in the divine mission of God’s revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world for the well-being of the neighbor to the glory of God.[xviii] We need faith by which love and all else is added to us.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 224. “From the concern about one’s obligations to external authorities, Paul moves to a discussion about obligations within the community of followers.”

[iii] Lancaster, Romans, 224. “To tell the followers of Rome not to owe anything may have partly meant to make sure they paid what was due (financially and socially), but it may also have discouraged participation in patronage that would saddle them with obligations outside the community of followers.”

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 224. “Instead of taking on obligations outside the community, the one obligation to which they should commit themselves is to love one another (13:8).”

[v] Lancaster, Romans, 225. “It may also be said that one of the ways we honor God is by treating well the ones that God has created, so the two commandments that Jesus named are not unrelated, and Paul understood that.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 224. “We are under obligation to others, and we do need to obey the law, but the obligation and obedience are both carried out by loving one another. This is what God’s authority requires of us and how we are subject to it.”

[vii] Lancaster, Romans, 226. “Many have seen, then, that the kind of love that fulfills the law is not simply a sentimental emotion, nor is it even simply not doing harm; a proper understanding of this commandment calls us to active caring toward those around us.”

[viii] LW 25:480 “Therefore the works of darkness are the works of those who are asleep in the spirit, in the bad sense, that is, those who are snoring away in the desires of the world—not only those works which are popularly thought to be evil but also those which are considered good, and yet are evil because of the inner evil, for men do them without the watchfulness of faith.”

[ix] Lancaster, Romans, 227. Acts of darkness, things done at night, “For people in Rome, excessive behavior at evening feasts was common practice, and excessive behavior often leads to quarrels and strife. Such behavior was common in the order of the empire as it is in other times, and places, but this order is passing away.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 228. “Knowing the time, then, does not mean having in mind a date of a future occurrence but rather becoming aware of how our history is relativized by the eternal God. In every. Moment, we must be mindful of the Day.”

[xi] Lancaster, Romans, 227. “The passing of the old order means that we no longer have the cover of darkness and secrecy, so we should live at all times with the honor and integrity that can bear the scrutiny of day.”

[xii] Lancaster, Romans, 227. “Even in the twilight, they must live as if they day were fully light.”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 226. “Paul is telling the followers of Jesus in Rome that the time in which they are living is a critical time, so they should be alert.”

[xiv] LW 25:111fn11 “But it does more good to the one loved, because this is the nature of love, that it favors in a good way and does good, even if it suffers evil and is hated.”

[xv] Lancaster, Romans, 228. “Paul’s point is not about hurtful self-denial. Rather, they say it is about excess and letting the desires rules us so that our aim in life is to gratify them. The desires of the former way of life—and they include mor than physical desires (for instance, desiring honor)—should not rule us. This Lord overturns the expectations and gratifications of the old order.”

[xvi] Lancaster, Romans, 229. “The constancy of this demand requires us to ask in every moment where our allegiance lies, and whether or not we are displaying our allegiance to Jesus Christ in our thoughts and actions.”

[xvii] Lancaster, Romans, 227. “The idea that what one needs to wear for the coming day is weaponry suggests that the dawning of a new day with a new order will bring struggle.”

[xviii] LW 25:112fn14 “He creates a remarkable antithesis whereby the places ‘light’ and ‘darkness,’ ‘works’ and ‘armor’ in juxtaposition. And this is surely true, because the life of the new law is a battle and a war, and therefore we need armor.”

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Hope Comes to the Hopeless

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. These are the words that define Advent. These are the words that define the Christmas season. These are the words that represent to us the very characteristics of God: God is hope; God is peace; God is joy; and, of course, God is love. And if these words tell us who God is and how God is toward us, then these words should be fundamentally definitive for humanity who wis made in the image of God. These words should describe us and define our activity in the world; we should not only have hope but bring hope, not only have peace but perform peace, not only have joy but be joy, and not only experience love but share love in the way it is so desperate to be shared from one human being to another no matter sex, class, race, age, identity in the world.

Sadly, these four words don’t often define humanity…especially now in this moment and at this time. We’re more hopeless than ever, we are downright peaceless, our joy is suffocated by grief and fatigue, and love seems too risky, so we bury it under resentment, anger, and fear as we divide and pull apart from each other. How do we have hope when every other time we’ve had hope it’s been thrown to the ground and smashed into thousands of pieces? I can’t have hope because I’m submerged in the waters of hopelessness and I’m tired of being let down again and again and again by this fickle friend. And to be honest, I don’t want hope; I’m too fatigued to have hope.

But, yet: Advent.

Advent slips in through the back door and dares to suggest Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. The first Sunday in Advent is an interruption to our normal, day-to-day decent into chaos and tumult, where hopelessness reigns. And I think this is why the first Sunday of Advent carries hope with it; the first Sunday in Advent is the manger of Hope and thus we must come face to face and contend with it as it speaks to us and illuminates our hopelessness.

Isaiah 2:1-5

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it. (v2)

Isaiah declares to all of God’s people God is on God’s way and among them God will build God’s house. God’s house will be built in such a way it will be visible and accessible to all and not reserved for a privileged few. It is in and through this divine house that all will be one, the unity of humanity made known by the dwelling of divinity.[ii]

Isaiah continues,

Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of Abba God,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that [Abba God] may teach us [Abba God’s] ways
and that we may walk in [God’s] paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of [Abba God] from Jerusalem. (v3)

As Isaiah paints a vision of God’ house dwelling among God’s people instigating unity within humanity, he exposes God’s desire for all of God’s people to be with God, to learn from God directly, and walk (humbly) with God. God’s house and God’s presence among the people will draw the people unto God and by being drawn unto God the people inwardly digest God’s love, God’s life, and God’s liberation becoming one with God and with each other—on the whole earth[iii] as it is in the entire heavens.

Then Isaiah says,

[Abba God] shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more. (v4)

The instruction and guidance mentioned before turns toward judging and arbitration. God’s judgment and arbitration will be that which brings tangible and material peace among the people. By God’s presence, God’s righteousness will expose the people and illuminate their crooked pathways and straighten them, guiding them into what is true and right.[iv] God’s righteousness will be their righteousness; God’s justice will be their justice for they have learned the ways of God, the ways of divine justice informed by mercy. [v] Human ingenuity will transform by the exposure of God’s righteousness and justice; it will turn away from making weapons for war out of the metal forged from the earth and the greediness from the heart. Rather, they will make tools of love, life, and liberation out of those instruments meant to reinforce indifference and bring death and captivity. No longer will humanity worship its power in terms of arsenals and treasuries; [vi] God will be their all in all.[vii] God will be theirs and they will be God’s, and they will walk in God’s ways all their days knowing nothing any longer of the horrors and carnage and absurdity[viii] of war[ix] and obscene violence[x] knowing only the love of God and the love that binds them to each other. Power and might beaten into mercy and peace. [xi]

Isaiah finishes,

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of [Abba God]! (v5)

Isaiah exhorts the people of God to walk in the light of Abba God, they are to grow and rejoice in this light, becoming more and more, day by day, like their Abba God. This light is God’s light; this light is God in God’s self; this light is divine hope given to the entire earth and all the people. And it is good.

Conclusion

Hope isn’t something we cause ourselves to have or something we drum up from the depths of our souls. It’s a gift. It’s the light. It’s God. Hope comes to us. Hope comes low to us, to seek us as we are, wherever we are even when we are absolutely hopeless. Hope takes our hand to guide us into its light. Hope will even come down so low that it will be born into fleshy vulnerability, among dirty animals and unclean people, in straw and hay, wrapped in meager swaddling clothes, laying in the lap of an unwed, woman of color without a proper place to lay her head. He, Jesus the Christ, Immanuel—God with us—is our hope, is our hope for right now, in the darkness of late fall, in the tumult of our lives, in the fatigue of our bodies and minds, and dwells with us transforming our hopelessness—part by part—into hope. Incarnated hope knowing God is with us and God is faithful.

God comes, Beloved, bringing hope to the hopeless.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Abraham K. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: JPS, 1962), 169. “The prophet may be regarded as the first universal man in history; he is concerned with, and addresses himself to, all men. It was not an emperor, but a prophet, who first conceived of the unity of all men.”

[iii] Heschel, Prophets, 169. “Isaiah proclaimed God’s purpose and design ‘concerning the whole earth’ (14:26), and actually addressed himself to ‘all you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth’ (Isa. 18:3…) delivering special prophecies concerning Babylon, Moab, Damascus, Egypt, Tyre, and others…”

[iv] Heschel, Prophets, 169. “It is the God of Israel Who summons the mighty men to execute His designs (Isa. 13:3, 5), Who calls the nations of the world into judgment, and it is He Whom one day all nations shall worship in Zion (Isa. 2:2 ff….”

[v] Heschel, Prophets, 96. “Zion is where at the end of days all the nations shall go to learn the ways of God.”

[vi] Heschel, Prophets, 183. “The sword is the pride of man; arsenals, forts, and chariots lend supremacy to nations. War is the climax of human ingenuity, the object of supreme efforts: men slaughtering each other, cities battered into ruins. What is left behind is agony, death, and desolation. At the same time, men think very highly of themselves….Idols of silver and gold are what they worship.”

[vii] Heschel, Prophets, 183. “Into a world fascinated with idolatry, drunk with power, bloated with arrogance, enters Isaiah’s word that the swords will be beaten into plowshares, that nations will search, not for gold, power or harlotries, but for God’s word.”

[viii] Heschel, Prophets, 160. “The prophets, questioning man’s infatuation with might, insisted not only on the immortality but also on the futility and absurdity of war.”

[ix] Heschel, Prophets, 73. “…Isaiah was horrified by the brutalities and carnage which war entails. In his boundless yearning he had a vision of the day when ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’ (2:4). War spawns death. But Isaiah was looking to the time when the Lord ‘will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces…Israel’s security lies int eh covenant with God, not in covenants with Egypt of other nations.”

[x] Heschel, Prophets, 160. “When the prophets appeared, they proclaimed that might is not supreme, that the sword is an abomination, that violence is obscene. The sword, they said, shall be destroyed.”

[xi] Heschel, Prophets, 207-208. “God not only asks for justice; He demands of man ‘to regard the deeds of the Lord, to see the work of His hands’… ‘to walk in His paths…”

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“Salvation will come”

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

It’s mid-November, and we’re coming to the close of our liturgical year. It’s been a long year. Our socio-political landscape is marked by tumult and chaos, no matter what voting party you ascribe to. The ups and downs, the wins and losses, the intermingling of hope and despair are exhausting. We’re tossed about on the waves caused by those who tromp about leaving bodies in the wake, those who have more power, more money, more authority, more status than we do; we’re left wondering if we, the ones being represented, actually matter in this battle for who has the most toys (read: money, weapons, prestige, etc.). It’s hard to feel the ground under our feet when truth feels downright elusive; anyone else feel more and more skepticism toward anyone claiming to tell the truth? A diet of chaos and tumult with a big glass of skepticism never nourishes and always depletes. Humans are not meant to run on fumes for so long.

I don’t know about you, but I’m existentially and physically fatigued.

And that’s not even including our own personal lives and the things that have come and gone. Over the course of a year, we gain a lot, that is true. However, over the course of a year, we lose a lot, too. Some of us have lost family members, partners, and friends, acquaintances and colleagues. Whether to the cold hands of death or the firey fingers of derisive and divisive ideologies demanding cult-like adoration and adherence, there are people who were in our lives at the start of the year who are no longer darkening our doorways. Sadness, sorrow, grief, and regret are pretty wretched snacks; none of which actually satisfy our hunger and only leave a really bad, lingering aftertaste.

I don’t know about you, but I think I really need an intervention, a divine intervention, a good-news intervention. I need a light to pierce this darkness threatening to consume me, you, us, God’s beloved. I need to be interrupted and divorced from the dominant narratives of fear and anger. I need to be relocated in something new, something firm, something that is steady when everything else is rocky. I need a divine “normal” when nothing is normal anymore.

Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.

Isaiah’s words are a warm comfort to the parched soul. Ancient words to a people eager to know God is still their God; a need to know that they’re still seen by their God, that they’re still heard by the God who led them out of captivity in Egypt into the liberation of the reign of God. Through Isaiah, God proclaims that what was will be eclipsed by a new thing God will do in both heaven and on earth; the world will be changed when God shows up.[i]

I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.

Isaiah declares to the people that God’s joy and delight will be with God’s people. Not only will God take delight and have joy in God’s people, God’s joy and delight will be with and among the people; they, the children of God, will have access to and participate in that divine joy and delight. Weeping and distress will be no more. Isaiah’s comments about death highlight that life will be lived to the fullest, celebrated with joy and delight, with mercy and grace, by faith and love. For the one who dies when it is time to die will be the one who has lived well and has been alive all their days and those days will be many. They will also be the one who die in God’s delight and joy and will be taken further into God’s delight and joy; those who survive will celebrate such a one, for there will be no need to mourn.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord–
and their descendants as well.

Isaiahs’ imagery turns to the work of the people when God shows up, and the reign of God takes over. It will no longer be toil; it will be work that’s pleasing not only to God’s eye but to the eye of the one who works. What Isaiah is describing here is a lack of exploitation of the laborer; the fruit of their hands will be the product of their own work, and they will enjoy it.[ii] Children will not be born into systems that steal human dignity, reducing them to things that toil to make others rich and some even richer. Isaiah’s words also point to a satisfaction and satiation. There’s an emphasis on a distribution of satisfaction in the work of their hand and a feeling satiated is hinted at. It’s not about grain silos and treasury vaults to store up for one’s self and keeping it from others. Rather, it’s about everyone receiving what they need all the days of their life, each day blessed by God. And even further, it’s about letting the surplus go to those who lack. All are cared for; none go hungry, thirsty, naked, or unhoused.

Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent– its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

God’s people wonder if they’re heard, and they are heard; God’s people wonder if they’re seen, and they are seen. God not only sees them and hears them, God’s presence, Isaiah prophecies, will be so close to them that even before they pray their prayers will be answered.[iii] The people of God will be seen and heard intimately and vulnerably because God will be accessible by all who are seeking God.[iv] Isaiah tells the people, “Salvation will come…”[v] God comes for God’s people, the curse from long ago will be undone, the exile of recent will be terminated forever. Prey and predator will lie down together, they will stop hunting and being hunted, anger and fear will depart; the new heavens and the new earth will even be a place of refuge for animal-kind. But not for the serpent who is, according to Isaiah, reduced to eating dust; while the world, humanity and animal kind will feel relief from the burden of the curse in God, the serpent will bear it out as was long ago promised by God,[vi]

The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.[vii]

Conclusion

Isaiah tells Israel, “salvation comes,” and it will. Isaiah tells Israel, “God comes,” and God will. Isaiah tells Israel, “help comes,” and it will. Because their God is a God of the people, of the humble people who are at their wits end, hanging from the very bottom of the rope, the ones ready to give up. As Isaiah says elsewhere, “a bruised reed [Abba God] will not break, and a dimly burning wick [Abba God] will not quench; [Abba God] will faithfully bring forth justice.”[viii]

We are not abandoned, forsaken, or alone. We are not ungrounded, destabilized, or uprooted. We are not consumed by grief, sorrow, or despair. We are not ignored, dismissed, or forgotten. Isaiah’s words to Israel become words to us today, where we are and as we are. Beloved, God comes; Beloved, salvation comes; Beloved, help comes. For, behold, Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us will be born to us, to identify with us, to dwell with us, to be God close to us, and he will be the light that pierces the darkness forever.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[i] Benjamin D. Sommer, The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 913. “This passage recalls the initial prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah in its exuberant tone and literary style, but the nature of the prediction goes beyond those found in chs. 40-48: The world itself will be transformed in the new age that God brings.”

[ii] Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library (Louisville: WJK, 2001), 538. “The imagery of joy and absence of weeping is set in contrast to the sorrow through which the community of faith has come. The planting of vineyards and the enjoying of its fruits is simply the converse of Israel’s experience of exploration and conquest.”

[iii] Sommer, “Isaiah,” 913. “In 51.9-11 and chs 63-64, the people wondered whether God listens to their prayers. God answers this question here: In the future, God will answer prayers before the people even utter them.”

[iv] Childs, Isaiah, 538. “Verse 24 once again repeats the theme of chapter 65 of God’s utter accessibility in his calling and answering those who seek his presence.”

[v] Abraham K. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: JPS, 1962), 158.

[vi] Childs, Isaiah, 538. “The line ‘dust will be the serpent’s food’ is a play on Gen. 3:14, which describes the curse of the serpent at the Fall.”

[vii] Genesis 3:14

[viii] Isaiah 42:3

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Entering Anew Into Divine Light

The following is the introductory comment prior to last week’s Ash Wednesday service. I’m sharing here because I want to and who knows…maybe someone would like to read them… *shrugs

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The Ash Wednesday service bids us to come into the presence of God in a naked way. We enter this moment, this light to be exposed, to see ourselves clearly, to ask hard questions, and to reflect–seriously–on ourselves so that we may confess our captivity and complicity in oppressive systems–systems harming ourselves, each other, and other brothers and sisters throughout the world [and the world itself]. Everything about this service tonight is built with this desire for self-reflection in mind. So, tonight I pray you and I will listen and hear deep in our hearts the words and stories of this service, and come anew to the light of divine love for your health and sanctification.

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words like blood

words flow through me like the very blood that flows and moves through my veins and arteries in opposing directions through various delicate tubes weaving and wending throughout my body so everything I write comes from me not merely my mind or my heart but both and my body too and that flow and fluidity is a stream of my own being leaving me and entering the world but that old and over used analogy that this written thing is a begotten baby whose cord must now be cut so that the baby may live in the world falls flat because it is a lie nothing written has ever felt like it is not still connected to me in some form whether bad or good and should I point out that such an analogy is they way men view birth and child rearing because I am mom and there is no way that simply cutting the cord of the human I just birthed means that it is now detached from and not a part of me on its own and of its own through nourishing and encouraging and training and walking along side I grow more attached to the very child that I once held in my body and then strapped to my breast by cloth tied about my body and who now walks beside me and towers above me larger than I and so I cannot help but think that as maternally defensive as I am over my babies turned young adults due to profound and deep attachment that the same thing would occur with the other product that my body produces through herself because this thing that I have written bears in likeness to me and carries with it my genetic material even if merely collections of letters and shapes forming places to pause in various forms it is an animated thing not a cold product like a can or a shovel or a thing to be kicked about purchased sold used as a means to an end it is a line from me to the one who reads it an intimate momentary bond that holds for however many minutes it takes to walk together from the beginning to the end and I think the sooner we come to terms with the interconnectedness of art from the artist to the one who is engaged and encountered by the art the sooner we will be made aware that we are not stoic producers in a world demanding product and material but co-creators divinely inspired swirled up and spun about in the divine delight of begetting and creating living breathing things in the world that tie us to us in a beautiful silvery spiritual and mystical thread spun by the divine light of heaven dropped by spinning spools releasing their brilliant and delicate and thin string and material into eager hands of listening and watching creatures ready to participate in this thing called humanity and willing to step thread in hand curious enough to pick up the stray end of another and allow heart beats and blood flows and intimate connectivity to bond risking exposure and rejection and still feeling deep awareness of self and union because these words have flown through me like the very blood that flows and moves through my veins and arteries…

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inspired by Dorothee Sölle’s discussion of “Co-Creator” in To work and to Love: A Theology of Creation

Posted on by laurenlarkin 1