Br. Curtis Almquist

Isaiah 58:9b-14

During Lent, the Hebrew scriptures continually remind us of the words of the prophets. In ancient Israel, the prophets were tolerated, sometimes. The great rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, said: “To the patriots, [the prophets] seem pernicious; to the pious multitude, [the prophets seem] blasphemous; to those in authority, [the prophets seem] seditious.”[i]

The prophets, such as Isaiah, hear God’s voice and look at the world from God’s perspective. The prophets speak of God’s personal and intimate relationship to the world, how God is deeply affected by humankind. God is full of compassion, tenderness, and sorrow for what has gone awry in our world.[ii]

Secondly, the prophets remind us that God is never neutral. God is always partial to justice.[iii] So we hear from Isaiah’s prophecy a qualifier whether God is with us, whether we will know God’s presence. Isaiah prophesies, “You shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am… if.  “If you cease to speak evil, if you offer your food to the hungry, and if you satisfy the needs of the afflicted…”  Then. Then…!  Then we will experience God Emmanuel, God with us. God is always partial to justice for the poor and afflicted, for the homeless and hopeless.

Of course Jesus was formed by the prophetic witness. The very words Jesus speaks to begin his public ministry he quotes from this prophecy of Isaiah.[iv] Jesus’ attention is galvanized around the needs of the least, and the last, and the lost.

To quote again Rabbi Heschel: God is “the most moved mover,” who is deeply affected by human life. God is emotionally engaged with us. God suffers when human beings are hurt, so that when I hurt another person, I injure God.[v] Injury – whether we injure or whether we are injured – informs or deforms our relationship with God. Isaiah and the other prophets consistently speak to this.

In our baptism we explicitly recognize that God has come to live within us. We are God’s temple.[vi] And our values must be God’s values.

Meanwhile, there are spiritual forces in this world that rebel against God, and evil powers which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.[vii] Look at what’s happening all around us! We today must look; we must pray for protection, our own and others’; and we must act with the presence and power of God within us. How are we to act? Each of us has a different reach. But we must reach.

[i] The Prophets (1962), by Abraham Joshua Heschel, p. 23. As a young man, Rabbi Heschel (1907-1972) was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland, where much of his family died in concentration camps. Heschel escaped, eventually arriving in the United States. Heschel believed that the teachings of the Hebrew prophets were a clarion call for social action. He worked in civil rights, marching in Selma alongside Martin Luther King, Jr.  As an academic he was a prolific author. He emphasized the mutually dependent relationship between God, humankind, and all the rest of creation.

[ii] Heschel called this the divine pathos, i.e., sympathy or pity.

[iii] Heschel, p. 298.

[iv] The Gospel according to Luke 4:16-21remembers Jesus’ saying that he fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah (61:1-9ff).

[v] Heschel, p. 375.

[vi] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.

[vii] The Book of Common Prayer (1979), p. 302.