Sometimes, the items that show up in my inbox seem particualarly pertinent to the day (and to our time). I am providing you with one such item, below, a meditation by Father Richard Rohr. I hope you'll read it. I particularly liked the idea that Jesus, in his meditation on the Prophet Isaiah, deleted the prophet's description of how God would visit vengence on those who didn't please him.
I would like to see a similar approach in our politics, which would be more or less the opposite of what we're getting from our current president, who is following through on his promises of "retribution" for all those who failed to support him in his 2024 campaign.
Again, the bulletin below is from Father Richard Rohr. and his Center For Action And Contemplation.
oooOOOooo
Isaiah is the Hebrew prophet Jesus quotes directly when he first introduces himself in the synagogue in Nazareth:
The Spirit of God has been given to me,
YHWH has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good news to the poor,
To bind up hearts that are broken,
To proclaim liberty to captives,
Freedom to those in prison,
To proclaim the Year of Favor from the Lord.
(Luke 4:18–19, quoting Isaiah 61:1– 2)
Jesus, like the prophet he quotes, reveals not only his self-confidence but also his likely and intended audience. His message of good news is not likely to be sought after or heard by the comfortable and the secure, he seems to say, but by the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed—which fully explains Jesus’ behavior throughout the rest of his ministry.
Notice that Jesus deliberately does not quote the final line of the full, yet contradictory, Isaiah passage: “to proclaim a day of vengeance from our God.” It’s almost as though Jesus is tired of making God into one who limits and threatens, instead of the limitless one whom the passage has just talked about, and so different from the glorious vision of the New Jerusalem Isaiah has just described in the whole of chapter 60. Jesus refuses to let Isaiah end with caution and fear. Fortunately, we see that Isaiah does not stay there, either. Later in the book, he exclaims:
I am ready to be approached by those who do not consult me,
Ready to be found by those who do not seek me.
I say, “I am here. I am here!” to a nation that does not
even invoke my name. (Isaiah 65:1)
This sounds like so much availability and generosity from God’s side, perhaps too much for us to hope for. And yet this is where Isaiah lands for the rest of the prophecy, until the very final verse (66:24) where he makes a seeming allusion to the fires of Gehenna. But in Jewish teaching, the metaphor of fire doesn’t focus on eternal punishment. In the whole Bible, fire is almost entirely a “refiner’s fire” of purification in this world, not a fire of torture in the next.
The final chapters of Isaiah entertain themes of universal liberation and salvation for all, beginning with eunuchs and foreigners (56:1–7), along with agnostics and the barely interested (65:1–7), continuing with hints of universal salvation (through much of chapter 65), and moving into a total cosmology with a “new heavens and a new earth” (65:17; also 66:22). These images will return again at the end of the New Testament (Revelation 21:1). Thank God the Bible ends with an optimistic hope and vision, instead of an eternal threat that puts the whole message off balance and outside of love.
Foundation of Freedom
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