The
Holy One of Israel and the Message of Social Justice in Isaiah of
Jerusalem: A Model for Contemporary Proclamation
Paul D. Hanson
Florence Corliss Lamont Professor of Divinity
Harvard Divinity School
I. Proclamation: a Precarious
Art
Willard Swartley, in a
book entitled Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women, demonstrated how
the Bible has been enlisted with equal force on both sides of the
major ethical debates of the past two centuries.1 Harold Lindsell
wrote a book with which I disagree in all parts except the apt title,
The Battle for the Bible.2 The abuses to which the Bible
has been subjected as a source providing warrants for myriad contemporary
causes has led liberal savants like John Rawls and especially Richard
Rorty to urge that religion be left out of public debate catagorically.
Why then should we as biblical theologians and homileticans look
to the Bible with contemporary issues in mind?
"Should
we not raise questions regarding the hermeneutic that led [Bush]
to take an image from the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah,
to transform that image's meaning from an announcement of peace
to war, and then to attribute it to Christ who in turn becomes
the one ordaining America to go to war against Iraq?"
A negative reason leaps
to mind: As those trained to interpret the Bible in a responsible
manner, we bear the responsibility of identifying and calling attention
to the misuse of Scripture. Ronald Reagan "lectured" Israeli
lobbyist Tom Dine on the urgent implications of the biblical prophecies
concerning Armaggedon for the confrontation of the Superpowers during
the era of the Cold War.3 Is it not important to subject such inflammatory
eisagesis to the light of historical biblical scholarship? George
H. W. Bush dismissed the critical viewpoint of his Episcopal Bishop
on January 14, l991 and in his place invited Billy Graham to spend
the night at the White House. The next day the President declared
Desert Storm, followed one year later by a speech to religious broadcasters
in which he expressed his gratitude to his compliant "court
prophets." "I want to thank you for helping America, as
Christ ordained, to be a light unto the world."4 Should we
not raise questions regarding the hermeneutic that led him to take
an image from the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah,5 to transform
that image's meaning from an announcement of peace to war, and then
to attribute it to Christ who in turn becomes the one ordaining
America to go to war against Iraq? Regardless of one's judgment
on the merits of the case for Desert Storm, it seems that we are
derelict if we do not bring such questions into open debate.
With the intention to return
to the hermeneutical issues raised by these questions in the conclusion,
I suggest that the proper starting point for reflection is the point
where proclamation begins, with the biblical text, and in this case,
with the message of Isaiah of Jerusalem.
II. The Holy One of
Israel: Isaiah's Point of Reference
The focus of the papers
delivered at the Consultation in which the present essay originated
was the Book of Isaiah. The choice was felicitous, given the frequency
with which readings from Isaiah appear in traditional lectionaries.
Add to this the historical fact that Isaiah addressed a society
that was disgracefully negligent of its ordinary citizens in a period
in which it was entangled in international crises that would change
the geo-political face of the ancient world. The major difference
between our situation and Isaiah's is that while Israel was a minor
international player, the U. S. is equivalent to the Assyria of
the prophet's time, which only heightens the seriousness of our
interpretative task.
Let us first consider chapter
six of Isaiah. Whether we regard Isaiah 6:1-13 as Isaiah's call
vision or situate it in a period later in his prophetic ministry,
it is clear that his experience of the Holy One had an enormous,
indeed decisive impact on his career. My thesis is this: Isaiah's
experience of the Holy One established the perspective from which
he viewed all aspects of his world, both domestic and international.
Using modern terms we can observe that his awesome encounter with
the Holy One established the theological foundation for his ministry
and the existential passion that propelled both his defiant stand
against every power that challenged God's exclusive authority and
his unwavering advocacy for the victims of injustice.
How are we to understand
the nature of that experience? Rudolph Otto's mysterium tremendum
et fascinosum may be the first descriptor that comes to mind.
But Isaiah did not witness a vague numen. He encountered a Reality
with a specific identity, known as the Lord of Hosts, the Holy One
of Israel, the God revealed to Moses, the God of his ancestors.
And in contrast to a Seer like IV Ezra, he did not encounter the
deity in the privacy of his bedroom or in an open field, but in
the public sanctuary of his people's religion, the Temple.
Having been drawn into
a new dimension of relationship with the God of his ancestors, Isaiah
simultaneously found himself overwhelmed with a radical new awareness
of the life and death alternative posed by his people's founding
charter, the Torah. Ingrained in his consciousness from that point
onward was this stark fact: His people stood on the edge of calamity
because "they have rejected the tora of the Lord of
Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel" (5:24b).
III. Trust in the Holy
One and Human Pride: Israel's Precarious Balance
Isaiah was not the author
of a novel construal of his ancestral faith. He was a traditionalist.
But in the manner of the biblical prophets, his particular application
of tradition evidence peculiar traits and a special poignancy, in
part reflective, we may assume, of his privileged position in society
that enabled him forcefully "to speak justice to power,"
but above all deriving from his rare genius in constructing a theologumenon
deceptively simple in its profundity. Here I must credit one of
the last century's preeminent interpreters of the prophets, Walther
Zimmerli, for this understanding of the centrality of the concepts
of pride and trust in Isaiah's thought. A specific memory perhaps
will convey the verve with which Zimmerli described Isaiah. During
his term as a visiting professor at Yale in l964, I was assigned
the task of translating his lectures. I recall being the only one
in the lecture hall on a cold winter morning who understood that
when he eloquently and with great enthusiasm elaborated on what
he repeatedly referred to as Isaiah's woo oracles, he was
not describing a genre of love literature, but rather the
category of fierce imprecations that the prophet began with the
formulaic Hebrew word taken from the practice of lamenting the dead,
hoi, to be translated into English of course not as woo
but as woe! Deeper than the color of a heavy German accent
though was Zimmerl's profound insight into Isaiah's depiction of
Israel's life as precariously situated between two responses, trust
and pride. On this destiny-loaded balance the fate of Israel as
a nation resided.
Isaiah's contempt for everything
that was filled with pride and self-importance rested not simply
on a moral judgment that pride is a vice, but ultimately on the
fundamental theological premise that pride entailed the repudiation
of God as the only One deserving of praise. Isaiah's classic litany
against "all that is proud and lofty" in 2:11-17 begins
and concludes with the refrain, "The haughtiness of people
shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low;
and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day." Although Isaiah
was not adverse to drawing on sayings from wisdom tradition,6 he
insisted emphatically that those who turned from the Lord and were
"wise in [their] own eyes" must be included on the list
of those imprecated with hoi, "woe!", for they
were as good as dead (5:21). Indeed, Isaiah announced in 29:14,
"the wisdom of the wise shall perish," all of the claims
of the seers to have peered into the Eternal notwithstanding.
Besides being an affront
to God, according Isaiah, human pride seduced humans into building
their security on a rotten foundation. He was tireless in enumerating
the worthless props upon which Israel sought to shore up a tottering
nation: Foreign diviners and soothsayers, silver and gold, horses
and chariots, idols made by hand. Sound government was replaced
by the tyranny of the rabble and the base, and Jerusalem/Judah was
doomed to fall "because their speech and their deeds are against
the Lord, defying his glorious presence" (3:8).
Isaiah named Israel's desperate
efforts to build security upon its material resources for what it
was, a "panic." Though his dismay often found expression
in sarcasm and even misogynous diatribe (3:16:26), he became remarkably
lucid and concise when he pointed to the positive alternative to
self-destructive pride, namely trust in God: "One who trusts
will not panic" (28:16). Or again, "In returning and rest
you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength"
(30:17a). But true to the divine warning he had received in his
commission, the people remained fickle except in one area, their
proud insistence on the sufficiency of their own devices, "We
will ride upon swift steeds," they defiantly boasted in repudiation
of Isaiah's call for their return to trust in God (30:17b).
IV. Isaiah's Proclamation
"The
list of abuses condemned by Isaiah sounds all too familiar: The
debaucherous lifestyle of the rich sustained by ruthless exploitation
of the poor, land grabbing, perversion of truth and justice through
manipulation of language, and bribery..."
In framing his assessment
of Israel's precarious situation as balanced between trust and pride,
Isaiah subjected every aspect of Israel's life to the standards
of the Torah of the Holy One of Israel, and the product was a corpus
of prophecy that is unsparing in the condemnation of the abusive
of power and the construction of national security on military strategies.
The list of abuses condemned by Isaiah sounds all too familiar:
The debaucherous lifestyle of the rich sustained by ruthless exploitation
of the poor, land grabbing, perversion of truth and justice through
manipulation of language, and bribery, in sum, "they have rejected
the tora of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word
of the Holy One of Israel."
When Isaiah extended his
scrutiny from domestic scandals to foreign relations, he witnessed
the same displacement of trust in God by human pride hastening the
impending doom. He warned Ahaz, "if you do not stand firm in
faith, you shall not stand at all." But Ahaz mocked God by
repudiating the prophetic warning as he sought shelter behind feigned
piety, "I will not put the Lord to the test" (7:9-12).
Though portrayed as much more open to the prophet's word than had
been his father Ahaz, Hezekiah vacillated between Egypt and Assyria
as guarantors of Judah's security in spite of Isaiah's consistent
warnings against those "who trust in chariots because they
are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not
look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!" (31:1).
More remarkable than Isaiah's
deep pessimism regarding the seeming incorrigibility of the people
was the persistence in his message of the theme of hope for the
future. With remarkable theological consistency, he based this hope
on the same foundation that supported his scathing critique of all
aspects of Judah's life, that foundation being the Holy One of Israel.
For just as God was unbending it upholding Torah, so too God remained
true to a redemptive purpose. Though a dozen texts could be used
to expose this side of Isaiah's proclamation, 29:17-21 makes the
point: "On that day….the neediest people shall exult in
the Holy One of Israel. For the tyrant shall be no more, and the
scoffer shall cease to be; all those alert to do evil shall be cut
off-those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit, who set a trap for
the arbiter in the gate, and without grounds deny justice to the
one in the right." And as the oracle in 11:1-7 announces, return
to trust in God would restore true leadership to the land, leadership
not self-generated but based on "knowledge and fear of the
Lord."
V. Isaiah: A Model for
Contemporary Proclamation
What are the implications
of Isaiah's message for contemporary proclamation?
First and foremost is the
challenge for communities tracing their identities to the Bible
to reclaim the dreadful, awesome Center of faith and on that basis
to submit in obedience to the Holy One of Israel. Many agencies
in our society and world are active in alleviating hunger, gaining
the release of political prisoners, and hastening aid to disaster
areas. The dimension added by faith communities stems from viewing
all reality sub spacia aeternitates, with the result that
every human agent and institution is relativitized, brought down
from ideologically secured special privilege, reintegrated into
the family of humanity, and scrutinized impartially against universally
applicable norms of justice, equity, and shared prosperity.
It is impossible for me
to understand the potency of the coalition of Jewish and Christian
freedom riders and reformers in the Civil Rights struggle without
recognizing that transcendent dimension. This is not to claim in
a triumphal manner that all participants explicitly acknowledged
the Holy One as their point of reference. It is simply to acknowledge
that particular dimension of religious experience as contributing
to the tenacity and restraint and humility of leaders like Martin
Luther King, Jr., which in turn served, as it were, as a dependable
leaven within the growing movement for justice and equality for
all races.
As in the case of Israel,
so in our time steps forward often seem to be followed by an equal
number of steps backward. Some issues remain the same, some are
different, but on a fundamental level the message of Isaiah presents
us with the diagnostic lens to unmask the lies and distortions that
today are allowing the rich to exploit the poor and the powerful
to jeopardize world peace by using their positions to impose unexamined
strategies combined with greed on fellow citizens and other nations.
No leader is presently claiming, "I will make myself like the
Most High" (14:14b), but the same hubris that underlies that
claim can easily invade the consciousness of a leader who ignores
the biblical principle that there is only one ultimate Ruler of
the Universe and that the exercise of penultimate human authority
is legitimate only to the degree that it conforms and contributes
to the divine Sovereign's universal standards of justice and mercy,
the heavenly Redeemer's impartial love for every one of his creatures,
and the ever-active Creator's motherly concern for the vast but
fragile realm of nature.
VI. Concluding Hermeneutical
Reflections
In conclusion, I offer
a few hermeneutical reflections, preliminary in nature and functioning
primarily as an invitation to further discussion. Nothing exempts
us from distorting our study of Isaiah into ideologically driven,
self-serving agendas of our own. All of us are guided by presuppositions
and tutored in a set of beliefs that inevitably contributes subjective
dimension to our study. But the great danger and harm caused by
the abusive application of Scripture to life, both past and present,
behoove us to apply our scholarly methods and religious discernment
in a manner consistent with our spiritual ancestors. Moreover, the
experience of the Holy One in our own communities of worship will
draw us into the tiqqun 'olam that is the work that God shares
with those who surrender their human pride for trust in God and
remain ever vigilant in the struggle to remain obedient to what
God has asked of them.
Finally then, here are
a few guidelines for a faithful, fitting application of Scripture
to our own world. First, we must not abandon the conviction that
biblical texts in their ancient historical contexts conveyed a message,
and that that message through careful study can be recovered, albeit
imperfectly. For it is that message that is the starting point of
proclamation. Secondly, we stand in communities that are connected
to those texts by a living chain of interpretation, that is, by
tradition. Therefore, like Isaiah, we will not interpret individualistically
de novo, but within a confessional framework that has been
tested over the ages. Thirdly, interpretation and proclamation are
not done in isolation, but within a community of inquiry that should
be as broad as the human family.
This puts me tantalizingly
close to spelling out the five steps that I am developing in the
attempt to describe a hermeneutic capable of fostering a political
theology that is both faithful to our biblical heritage and helpful
to our modern society and world. But that can await a later opportunity
in an ongoing discourse….
1. Willard M. Swartley,
Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1983)
2. Harold Linsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
l976)
3. Quoted in "Presidents and Prophets," Yehezkel Landau,
The Jerusalem Post, Novembeer 4, l983
4. As reported in The New York Times, January 28, l992, Section
A, page 17.
5. Isa 42:6 and 49:6
6. E. g., Isa 1:2-3.
Comments? Share your thoughts
on Homiletix e-Forum's bulletin
board.
|
