The Prophet's Tongue

Don't be like this people,

Always afraid somebody is plotting against them.

Don't fear what they fear.

Don't take on their worries.

If you're going to worry, worry about The Holy.

Fear GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.

The Holy can either be a hiding place or a boulder blocking your way.

- From Isaiah 8: 11-15 (The Message)

I had a peculiar time this morning as I was preparing the bulletin for Sunday.  I was looking through the prophetic book of Isaiah, and as I searched for a piece to use as a call to worship I kept running into stuff that, at first glance, and then also at second glance would just sort of come across as blatantly political. I'm maybe getting a little hypersensitive about how things might be taken, because we're so divided and so full of bitterness these days.  It also wouldn't be the first time that the prophets and Jesus have rubbed folks trying to hold on their ideology the wrong way.

I don't like it when people use the scripture as a bludgeon to support their ideology, and so I'm conscious of trying not to do it myself.  I wish I could always be as clever as Nathan was with David when he criticized his adultery and murder by using that little parable about a man and a sheep, but most of the time, I'm just too transparent.  The actual Bible was plotting against me this morning.  I was going through Isaiah, looking for a nice little word of praise and I kept finding stuff like this, my eye just kept falling on it (all from The Message):

Doom, rebel children! God's decree. You make plans but not mine.  You make deals, but not in my Spirit. You pile sin on sin, one sin on top of another. -30: 1

A people unwilling to listen to anything God tells them, they tell their spiritual leaders, "Don't bother us with irrelevancies." They tell their preachers, "Don't waste our time on impracticalities, tell us what makes us feel better, Don't bore us with obsolete religion. That stuff means nothing to us. Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel."

Therefore, the Holy of Israel says this: "Because you scorn the Message, preferring to live by injustice and shape your lives on lies, this perverse way of life will be like a towering, badly built wall that slowly, slowly tilts and shifts, and then one day, without warning collapses - smashed to bits like a piece of pottery, smashed beyond recognition or repair. Useless, a pile of debris to be swept up and thrown int he trash." -30: 10-14

So you get the idea.  When I know where the prophet is going with all of this, and when I consider that the prophets often shared the fate of the people they were trying to warn, I get a little nervous, because I feel like if this ship goes down we're all going with it.  The Holy not only seemed like a boulder blocking my way, but maybe about to roll after me like that stone in the Mayan Temple in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Did I mention that I'm preaching about loving your enemies on Sunday?  Well, yeah, of course I am, because the lectionary is trying to kill me.

Yep, God makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.  That is not at all helpful to my sense of righteous indignation at the lies and general toxicity taking place up the road a ways.  I want the prophet to be on my side, there's so much stuff about the arrogant and the proud being kicked in the teeth, and the rich oppressor going beggared in the street. I could really use some of that sort of justice right now. Instead what I get is stuff that can point at me with every bit as much sting as it points at Donald Trump, maybe me even more because I actually care about The Holy.

My point is that I was looking for a hiding place, and I found a boulder in my way.  I wanted the rebel children to be those I disagreed with, and the badly built wall to be, well, you know what wall I wanted it to be.  But when you start living with the Word, The Holy isn't going to let you do whatever you want to do, it's going to challenge you to do something more, like turn the other cheek, and go the extra mile, and pray for those who persecute you.

This Jesus thing is awfully tough sometimes.