| As Brueggemann will say, Israel is being made ready to be an odd community. Israel is free for life under the aegis of Yahweh, who wills well-beiing, justice, and homecoming. This poet is a voice of hope to a community near despair, ready to give up on Yahweh. Indeed, great oppressive regimes aim at despair, for the killing of a hope-filled future renders displaced people powerless and easy to administer. Thus the poetic, lyrical, liturgical practice of hope is foundational for the sustenance of an odd community. Such practices of course can easily become sloganeering self-deception, unless the community is able to point to signs in the actual course of affairs. Poetic imagination in Isaiah was able to transpose observed public events into gifts Yahweh had performed for Israel. The emancipation of hopefulness engendered liturgical freedom that in turn produced ethical, and eventually, geographical freedom. I must remember to hold onto this idea of "the emancipation of hopefulness." Wow. Hopefulness is so often held prisoner - put away so that it cannot have a voice and is not able to walk in the middle of God's people. But when hopefulness is set free - wow! Life begins to spring forth - the hills are made low - the valleys are raised up - the crooked ways are made straight. The wonder-filled words of the prophets are meant to move us to live within that hopefulness and not simply find the language to be poetic and filled with nice images. In the speaking of those words comes the life that those words call up among us. This is not an easy path - but it is oh so necessary. Connection: I find that words come easy. I find that actions that rise up to the words are not so easy. I also find that as I hear the words that draw us up into a living vision of hopefulness, life - real life - becomes stirred up. That is vital. Stir us up, O God, as you have done to your people throughout time. We are faithful only as you Spirit pulls us into your vision of life that is placed before us. Amen. |
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