Reading
Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees,
who write oppressive statutes,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be your spoil,
and that you may make the orphans your prey!
Isaiah 10:1–2
Reflection
I woke up yesterday tired. My body, my mind. And even though it was harder to name, my soul too.
I went out to the pond near our house and only counted one duckling when earlier in the day there had been two. My back and legs were stiff… you know, because going to a driving range for a bucket of balls was apparently too taxing for this middle-aged dad. And my kiddo had a rough day at summer day camp—other kids calling him “Blue Teletubby” because he wanted to dye part of his hair. (We’ll just ignore the fact that there isn’t a blue Teletubby—red, yellow, green, and purple, bruh.)
As I left the house and got on with my day, I listened to the news. The headlines focused almost entirely on the legislation moving through Congress. I thought about my 78-year-old, legally blind mother, dependent on Social Security. I thought about my adult sister with special needs who lives with her. I thought about friends whose families ranch, farm, and live around the state—already inconveniently distant from life-saving, life-giving medical resources. I thought about all the kids I’ve cared for in the childcare centers I’ve managed over the years, and all the children whose families didn’t have the resources to be in safe, suitable environments.
I thought about the mounds of paperwork and process we require to care for and tend to one another within the rather tattered social safety net both political parties have constructed and deconstructed over the years and decades.
I was angry. And I didn’t want to sit in it. I didn’t want to pray. I didn’t want to post. I didn’t want to go back to work. But I needed to do something that wasn’t nothing.
I took a few beats to figure out what I could do about it—to reclaim my own spiritual and emotional agency within a broken and hurting world, one I contribute to and also long to help heal.
Words.
They’re where I find comfort and solace.
They’re where the violence in my heart can lash and rage and then be highlighted and deleted.
They’re where I can retreat. And they’re where Jesus meets me as I am.
Words bring us clarity about what is right and true.
Words remind us of the justice and mercy of love.
Words soothe and bring to account.
Words see and cause the body to move.
After letting my own words go for a while, I turned to ancient ones.
These prophetic words were recorded as the social conditions of a country began to degrade and erode, as their geopolitical world was turning upside down. They were meant to caution and guard against caring less for—or treating others as less than.
They were words spoken from God to God’s people in Israel—a people in a place in a time—yet, they feel just as prescient and potent today.
What’s fascinating to me in these words from the prophet Isaiah is that the writers of the words—the scribes—are just as indicted as the ones who perpetrate the injustices. And as someone who works with words almost everyday of my life, I’m wise to heed them myself.
God spoke light into darkness, giving form and shape, life and beauty to the world.
Jesus spoke healing into our bodies and spoke forgiveness into our souls.
And the Spirit speaks to us still—leading us and guiding us in the ways of our Master so that all people in all places would know their name and place with God.
The history of God’s action in the world—miraculous justice and restorative healing—comes through words.
Prayer
Doom to you who legislate evil,
who make laws that make victims—
Laws that make misery for the poor,
that rob my destitute people of dignity,
Exploiting defenseless widows,
taking advantage of homeless children.
— Isaiah 10:1–2, The Message
May your will, O God, be done—on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen.
