A little less than a year ago, several months removed from the earthquake that devastated Haiti, a team from National Community Church that included both myself and my soon-to-be wife sat in a Miami airport waiting for their connecting flight to Haiti. Last night I was vividly brought back to this moment as I was reading through Walter Brueggemann’s Journey to the Common Good. While waiting for that connecting flight I happened to be reading through the 58th chapter of Isaiah. I remember reading verses 11 and 12 with amazement. “The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame…your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” My thought as I read these words were, “This is exactly what we are going to do.” In retrospect, I believe this was a grandiose dream. How much can a dozen people lacking carpentry skills accomplish in a week’s time? In fact we did not “raise up the age-old foundations.” We were not called “Repairer of Broken Walls” nor “Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” We did help protect a school from erosion and helped some villages have access to clean drinking water. However, what I walked away with or had reinforced from the trip was that people living in incredibly poor and dire circumstances tend to have more love and joy than what I experience in my homeland: the United States.
I don’t believe it was coincidence that Brueggemann’s book brought me back to this chapter in Isaiah. Frankly, I really struggle reading the prophets or any poetry really. Journey to the Common Good has brought the prophet Isaiah to life for me. While my reading of Isaiah 58 sitting in that Miami airport was appropriate for the circumstances I believe another reading of the chapter as a whole provides insights and concepts that are paramount to my reading in the Miami airport.
I want to give an analysis of the 58th chapter of Isaiah, which of course mostly relies on ideas and commentary found in Brueggemann’s Journey to the Common Good. I wanted to give a quick overview of the book before proceeding. The main theme of Journey to the Common Good is neighborliness. Brueggemann uses the Pharaoh story from Exodus and the prophet Jeremiah to juxtapose two opposing triadic ideologies/narratives for society. The first triad is wisdom, wealth, and might. The second: steadfast love, justice, and righteousness. Brueggeman writes that “One is a triad of death because it violates neighborliness. The other is a triad of life because it coheres with YHWH’s best intention for all of creation” (p. 65). Brueggemann argues that the triad of wisdom, wealth and might produces a narrative of scarcity while the triad of steadfast love, justice and righteousness produces a narrative of abundance. The Pharaohic regime found in Exodus is one based on scarcity. And our current regime in the U.S. is also based on scarcity. The time is now to move toward a narrative of abundance.
The entire 58th chapter of Isaiah is devoted to the act of fasting and what true fasting really is and/or should be. The chapter opens with God declaring to “shout” the rebellion of his people; let them know their short comings.
‘Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.’ (vs. 1-2 emphasis mine)
The word “seem” in verses one and two indicate a pretense on the part of Israel. In other words their fasting is an outward display. God then moves on to quote his people’s complaint.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ (vs. 3)
Verse three continues with God’s response demonstrating how Israel’s fasting uses a wealth and might narrative.
‘Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?’ (vs 3-6)
God then reframes the fast into the narrative of steadfast love, justice and righteousness.
‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer shelter—when you see the naked to clothe him and not turn away from your own flesh and blood?’ (vs. 6-7)
What are the results if one fasts with this new narrative that God has proclaimed?
‘Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.’ (vs. 8-9)
In other words, if we live in the narrative of steadfast love, justice and righteousness we will draw near to God and God will draw near to us.
God then uses an “if then” statement demonstrating that the use of might is not called for but the use of justice is.
‘If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing fingers and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday.’ (vs. 9-10 emphasis mine)
We are now back at the verses that I pondered in amazement while waiting for the connecting flight to Port Au Prince, Haiti. Looking back it is apparent that I was approaching my trip to Haiti from the wrong narrative. Living in the U.S., it is easy to live in the narrative of wisdom, wealth, and might which is where I was a year ago. If I am completely honest I am still living within that much-maligned narrative, but reading the first ten versus of Isaiah 58 rather than just verses 11 and 12 has showed me the error of my ways and I am prayerfully pursuing a transformation to a narrative of steadfast love, justice, and righteousness.
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