The Lord has appointed Isaiah (or, as some commentators posit, Israel) to a task. Isaiah's immediate response is to point out that he is manifestly unqualified for the job, "I have already tried and I failed at it. I put it a lot of effort but accomplished nothing."
[Note: This assessment would be plausible for Israel to express during exile.]
Yet, despite his earlier failures, Isaiah accepts the Lord's commission, "Surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God."
Isaiah describes that commission--and ours.
"It is too light a thing that you should serve merely your own sort." (Experiment with defining "own sort" as national identity or religious adherence or some other way that you typically can distinguish between people).
The Lord continues, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." Historically and currently, we continue to debate just what those nations have to do with that light; i.e., what acknowledgement are they required to make about its source?
Isn't it typical of any of us religious types that we think that the God we worship really likes us best? How hard is it for us to believe, to accept that God is concerned about the wellbeing of some people that seem really strange to us?
Isaiah a long time ago was preaching that the Lord had intended that Israel would be saved from its desperate situation be reinstated and renewed--not merely for the sake of Israel, but to be a light to the nations, to be a means by which the salvation possible because of the Lord might reach to other kinds of people.
I'm reading "Come Out, My People!" God's Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond by Wes Howard-Brook, which explores the two themes that run through the Bible--God's care for all people or for some people at the expense of others.
No comments:
Post a Comment