Hearing Isaiah When My Ears Were Opened
Looking for larger truths in ancient words
One Clear Thing is my Sunday reflection on what religion means to me. Today I am writing about the lessons I think we need to learn from Isaiah. I will dive deeper in coming weeks.
I do not believe my religion is “the correct one,” I don’t believe we need to believe in the same things to learn from each other. I will not stand for anyone saying anything against atheists.
No worries if you don’t want to hear my thought on “Sky Daddy,” but I do welcome conversation. (God is not a man…)
We need to return to Isaiah, once the most popular of books in the Torah and revered as the Fifth Gospel for its prophecy of the birth, life, and death of Jesus.
Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them. — Isaiah 1:23, NIV
Isaiah tells us how those in power should treat their subjects, how we should treat each other. These directions include not accepting planes for our future private use and not removing school lunches or Medicaid, unless I have forgotten how to read.
Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. — Isaiah 5:8, NIV
It tells us how to look on what we have and what we need; how to keep from taking more.
Isaiah calls for justice, mercy, and humility in all people. It invites all people, everywhere, to lead a life of mercy and grace, and it opens salvation to all.
Isaiah erases the idea of St. Peter standing at the pearly gates in judgment of our sins. Yes, our sins lead the judgment, but there is the hope of purifying fire to touch our lips and bring us to redemption.
More than anything, it is the call of Isaiah 1:17 we Christians should bring to the world.
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless… — Isaiah 1:17, NIV
As a Methodist I hear this echoed in John Wesley’s words, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can (a lovely rephrasing of Galatians 6:10 — Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers — that mercifully leaves off the qualifier singling out those who worship your own faith).
It is time for us all to open our ears to the messages of Isaiah, as well as those from other faiths that have led successful and caring nations to care for their people and their neighbors.
In the next few weeks I will talk about how this aligns with other books of the Bible in turning our witness into an movement of action, as opposed to an action of watching.
I would love to hear the text, song, painting, anything, that leads you to move, to stand up and deny the injustice of our world. I promise to do more than throw Bible verses at you next week. But I don’t think I could ever get the message out as well as the words of Isaiah themselves.