Mixed Media, Mixed Message

Reading Isaiah is not an easy thing to do. Practically every metaphor, every phrase, every word, needs to have some kind of context in order to have meaning.

What did those words mean for and to the people of the day?

What could those words mean for us today?

Not a simple task. Not simply a matter of saying, "The Bible is the literal truth spoken and inspried by God, so all we have to do is do what it says."

Isaiah can be tiresome that way. On the one hand, it repeatedly cautions Israel, "Don't flirt with Egypt. Don't think that making an unholy alliance with Egypt will protect you against Assyria." On the other hand, Isaiah says YHWH will use unholy Assyria to essentially do holy work. Isaiah also envisions a coming together, a three-way unification of Assyrians, Egyptians and Israelites who will all worship God together.

Systematically throughout the book, every geographic place name in the world of Israel's vaguest knowledge gets the same prescription from YHWH: I will flatten you. Then I will build you up. Again and again, Israel hears the warning: Your hearts have been hardened and your worship is empty and your leaders are corrupt. I will punish you. Then I will restore you.

Or, at least a remnant.

It's core material in Judaism and Christianity. No wonder some struggling souls have concluded over the years that the God of the New Covenant is not the same God as the God of the First Covenant(s).

Isaiah's global sense was basically a radius of about 500 miles. Mt. Zion was clearly the center of that circle. Only problem is, every other civilization on the planet considered itself to be the center of everything else as well. How would you have ever convinced ancient Americans living around Harney Peak in the Black Hills that Mt. Zion was where God spoke, and the ONLY place where God spoke to people (after speaking at Mt. Sinai)?

And what about the people who lived around what we today call Ayers Rock near Alice Springs, Australia? Actually, they'd probably have had a much easier time accepting a prophet who walked around naked for three years...

Ever tried evangelizing someone alienated from the church after being abused by the church with the image of a prophet who exposed himself for a thousand days?

It's an awful lot to reckon with as we sing "The King of love my Shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never. I nothing lack if I am his, and He is mine forever."

That's Old Covenant also and seen best in the person and work of Christ. And through the Christ in us. WE make the God in Christ real and believable to people when the Christ in us is real and believable to people.

If Portland cops need mental health professionals to ride along with them, I sometimes wonder if we don't also need mental health professionals to ride along with us in daily life and in our walks of faith. And in walking through Isaiah or Jeremiah or Revelation or Daniel or Ezekiel. Or even Psalm 23. Oh, and don't forget Romans, the book Luther said we should know by heart.

After all, there are a lot of mixed messages and mixed media out there.

Lead us, Good Shepherd!

Amen.

Roger

In The Wilderness Prepare the Way...

Luke 3 quotes Isaiah 40. Luke 3 is introducing John the Baptizer as the one who prepares the way. John is in the wilderness crying out, "Prepare the way of the Lord."

That's not what Isaiah 40 says exactly. To a discouraged, dmoralized people who believe the Lord has dumped them or forgotten them, the prophet Isaiah is the voice crying, "In the wilderness prepare the way!"

Moses asked Pharaoh to free his people so that they could go into the desert to worship. We understand that as a request for religious freedom. Actually, it would become more a time of religious instruction. Maybe Israel couldn't properly worship YHWH in Egypt because they didn't have sufficient time off or because it was prohibited. Or maybe it was because Israel could never properly know or worship or depend on YHWH so long as they depended on Momma Egypt for safety, security, identity, work and food security.

It took 40 years, two generations in the wilderness, to grow the Egypt out of the Israelites. There would be more wilderness in their lives; as in Babylon, the Herods and Rome. Not to mention Nazi Germany.

The artful (I think it says "Boogey 1", what do you think?) bit of graffiti is on the Morrison Street bridge over I-405 a block from where we do our downtwon ministry through Operation Nightwatch. Lots of people I know are afraid of downtown Portland. Really! They think it's a wilderness that they are afraid to visit because they think it's less civilized than the 'burbs. Oh, my! Portland is a dinky city, just a town, really. You can walk from end to end of downtwon Portland in a few minutes.

Take a place like Philadelphia. The ghetto section of that old city is, by itself, probably four times the size of downtown Portland. Now there's a wilderness!

We live in the 'burbs. NE 162nd Avenue, the arterial street we use to get to and from our house, is one of the highest crime areas of the city. Several weeks ago, a 12 year-old-girl left a late night party on 162nd with a bunch of other rowdy teens headed to the MAX train. On the train, a police officer spotted her and recognized that she was banned from the system because she had previously mugged a rider and stolen her purse. At the next stop, the officer attempted to escort the girl off the train. She punched him in the face. It took two officers and a bean bag shotgun to subdue her. 12 years old. Her life and home are a wilderness.

In the past month, there have been six incidents of domestic murder/suicide in the metro area. Not one has been in the wilderness of downtown Portland. All have been out in the 'burbs in really nice areas newer than where we live.

Wilderness is a state of mind, a state of turmoil, a state of estrangement, not a place.

In the wilderness, in the desert, prepare the way..."

Where else would you prepare it? We are all born into the slavery of some kind of Egypt. There is no such thing as being born in the Promised Land, and there is no route to the Promised Land that does not go through the wilderness. None. That's where we learn to trust and depend on God. That's where we learn to take the next steps and go on.

What's your wilderness? Can you name it? What needs to be smoothed? What valley needs filling? What obstacles need to be brought down? What barriers stand in your way?

"All flesh shall see the salvation of God. " That's how Luke 3:6 ends its Isaiah quote. Salvation in the biblical sense is far more than forgiveness of sins. It is God's entire process of making way, of enabling, empowering, removing barriers and obstacles from. The Hebrew root means "to make broad". That's the opposite of narrow and constricted.

John wasn't just a wacko in the wilderness hawking his Left Behind books and the latest Christian fiction DVD's or video games. He was calling us to own up to the wilderness in our hearts so that God could start applying his salvation to the wilderness of our lives, the whole shebang. John knew that "salvation" was not some distant hope or prospect or fantasy. It was already walking the earth on human feet.

John had this cousin, you see. He was more than your ordinary relative that you go hunting or four-wheelin' with. We're in the wilderness. Let the preparation begin.

Sahlom,

Roger