Proper 15A 1st Reading
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Joseph Coleson
Some title chapters 56-66 “Third Isaiah”; others (less certain? more charitable? both?) refer to them as Isaiah’s third major division. Either way, 56:1-8 is the beginning of the end of Isaiah. That makes verse 1 a transitional fulcrum. If God truly is the Transcendent One chapters 40-55 (“Second Isaiah”) describe, what is the appropriate response of the believer, of the believing community? Verse 1 lays it out as succinctly as possible, beginning, “Thus says the Lord.” Certainly, following God can be said to begin with hearing God.
What, then, is important enough to comprise the first instruction in this final section of Isaiah? “Maintain justice, and do what is right.” We might have guessed. At bottom, this is another expression of the “greatest” commandment, “You shall love the Lord . . .,” and the “second . . . like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
The reason Isaiah gives may surprise us. He does not say here, “because this is what God has commanded Israel from the beginning”; nor, “so God does not have to punish Israel/Judah [again]”; nor even, “because this is the most (pick one: successful? effective? rewarding? healthy?) way to live–not just theologically, but also ‘pragmatically.’” Believers, individually and in community, are to “maintain justice, and do what is right” in both anticipation and celebration of the heroic work of God’s Servant–for the glorious future of God’s people–Isaiah just has pictured in all its cosmic pathos and its eschatological glory in chapters 40-55.
In his 1930 book, Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud said, “One feels inclined to say that the intention that man [i.e., humans] should be ‘happy’ is not included in the plan of ‘Creation.’” Freud prided himself on promoting a hard-headed view of reality, but along with many others he missed the ubiquitous biblical theme that ultimate human happiness is precisely what God is about in all aspects of God’s creation/redemption/renewal agenda on this earth. Of course, there is much more, and we could express this intention in a multitude of ways, also. But that “man” should be “happy” is a cardinal intention of “Creation,” Freud and his ilk notwithstanding. Believers begin to know this early on; continuing in faith, we become increasingly confident that hearing and following God’s instruction (torah) is the key to our response, in part because God’s instruction explicates reality in all its dimensions.
But who is the believer? Who comprises the believing community? Who belongs? Who should belong? Who is allowed to belong? In ancient Yehud/Judah (as sometimes in our world), the answer always comes as a surprise to some, and sometimes it comes as a surprise to all. The rest of this paragraph lays that out. We should notice, first, that no one we may have assumed to be “in” needs to be “out.” Verse 2 pronounces “happy” the one who maintains justice and does right, exemplified and summed up as “keep[ing] the sabbath . . . refrain[ing] from doing any evil.” Faithful Judeans/Israelites in Isaiah’s day, and all believers since, are welcome daughters and sons in God’s family, called to relationships of integrity with God and with each other.
The “surprise” begins in verse 3 and builds the reader’s astonishment through verse 8. Structurally, chiasm is the key: verse 3 introduces first “the foreigner,” then “the eunuch.” The rest of the paragraph, verses 4-8, expands the discussion of these two groups, but in reverse (chiastic) order. Verses 4-5 promise childless eunuchs a glorious future, including “a name better than sons and daughters” (v. 5). Verses 6-8, the major focus of our reading, heap blessing after blessing upon “foreigners who join themselves to the Lord” (v. 6).
Verse 6 characterizes “eligible” foreigners as both “being” and “doing.” Moreover, their being and doing correspond with the being and doing of faithful native-born Israelite followers of God. “Joining,” “ministering,” “loving,” and “being his servants” are represented in all their aspects and actions by keeping the sabbath and not profaning it. Sabbath observance probably was (and may be still) the most publicly visible “sign” of God’s covenant with God’s people. Jesus’ midrashim on the Sabbath (e.g., Mark 2:23-28), together with other New Testament instruction, will inform Christian sabbath practice, but Christ-followers may be supposed either to have, or to be moving toward, both a sound sabbath theology and a vibrant sabbath praxis. These, in turn, will strengthen our understanding and our walk with God in all areas.
As represented by sabbath-keeping, those who “hold fast my covenant” (v. 6) God “will bring to my holy mountain” (v. 7). Explicitly here, as numerous places in Isaiah (and elsewhere), God’s “holy mountain,” Zion/Jerusalem, is “for all the peoples” (author’s translation). The article in the Hebrew text clarifies that all people groups, however defined (by DNA, by culture, by language, by other criteria), are eligible for “joyful” inclusion within the family of God. When all is said and done, only those will be “out” who select themselves out, rejecting to their own bitter end God’s generous–even, we may say, ardent–invitation.
Verse 8 bestows on God a seldom-acknowledged title, “The Gatherer of the Outcasts of Israel.” But that is not enough for God. This declaration of God’s ultimate intentions is in the spirit of Isaiah 49:6, “It is too light a thing [for my Servant] . . . to restore the survivors of Israel.” Building on this marvelous title of God “the Gatherer,” Isaiah went on to declare, “Still more [from beyond Israel] I will gather upon him [Israel? Others?] [in addition] to those already gathered [mostly ethnic Israel] to him [to God? to Israel?].” The ambiguity here well may be intentional, to spotlight Isaiah’s astonishing assertion: God is a Gatherer beyond our imagining!
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