Universal Liberation and Love
Father Richard points to Jesus’ first sermon, when he quotes the prophet Isaiah to emphasize a message of inclusion:
Isaiah is the Hebrew prophet Jesus quotes directly when he first introduces himself in the synagogue in Nazareth:
The Spirit of God has been given to me,
YHWH has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good news to the poor,
To bind up hearts that are broken,
To proclaim liberty to captives,
Freedom to those in prison,
To proclaim the Year of Favor from the Lord.
(Luke 4:18–19, quoting Isaiah 61:1– 2)
Jesus, like the prophet he quotes, reveals not only his self-confidence but also his likely and intended audience. His message of good news is not likely to be sought after or heard by the comfortable and the secure, he seems to say, but by the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed—which fully explains Jesus’ behavior throughout the rest of his ministry.
Notice that Jesus deliberately does not quote the final line of the full, yet contradictory, Isaiah passage: “to proclaim a day of vengeance from our God.” It’s almost as though Jesus is tired of making God into one who limits and threatens, instead of the limitless one whom the passage has just talked about, and so different from the glorious vision of the New Jerusalem Isaiah has just described in the whole of chapter 60. Jesus refuses to let Isaiah end with caution and fear. Fortunately, we see that Isaiah does not stay there, either. Later in the book, he exclaims:
I am ready to be approached by those who do not consult me,
Ready to be found by those who do not seek me.
I say, “I am here. I am here!” to a nation that does not
even invoke my name. (Isaiah 65:1)
This sounds like so much availability and generosity from God’s side, perhaps too much for us to hope for. And yet this is where Isaiah lands for the rest of the prophecy, until the very final verse (66:24) where he makes a seeming allusion to the fires of Gehenna. But in Jewish teaching, the metaphor of fire doesn’t focus on eternal punishment. In the whole Bible, fire is almost entirely a “refiner’s fire” of purification in this world, not a fire of torture in the next.
The final chapters of Isaiah entertain themes of universal liberation and salvation for all, beginning with eunuchs and foreigners (56:1–7), along with agnostics and the barely interested (65:1–7), continuing with hints of universal salvation (through much of chapter 65), and moving into a total cosmology with a “new heavens and a new earth” (65:17; also 66:22). These images will return again at the end of the New Testament (Revelation 21:1). Thank God the Bible ends with an optimistic hope and vision, instead of an eternal threat that puts the whole message off balance and outside of love.
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From Juggling to Shelving
A De-Stressing Exercise
Last week I spent an hour with Nelson Boschman, my spiritual director. If you don’t have a spiritual director or life-coach or the like, I highly recommend him. He’s willing to give you a trial session to test for fit and does sessions online for convenience. He even has a few openings left in his schedule!
Juggling
Anyway, I entered the session quite stressed. As we listened together, the picture I had was that I was juggling too many things at once—each of five ‘balls’ (or bowling pins or chainsaws) represented a specific non-negotiable item on my to-do list for that day. As I imagined trying to keep all the balls in the air, I experienced the anxiety of wondering which one I might drop.
In addition, it felt like any extra call or email or invitation was an intrusion of further items, deeper stress, and the inevitability that they could all topple at any moment. I knew immediately that the way I was seeing it was ‘off,’ especially if my perspective made it impossible to stay present to whoever or whatever was right in front of me. That lurking angst is no way to live.
As he often does, Nelson kindly pressed pause on my monologue to offer a moment to be still, breathe, and listen. Those moments of stillness may be quiet but they are also always full—in the joyful, fruitful way.
Shelving
The juggling scene melted away and I saw a wall of shelves before me—they featured square cubby-holes that contained scrolls. I remember this picture from decades ago when I might be called to speak contemporaneously at conferences for six hours on end. In those days, I would picture this same shelf and ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit beside me. Without any rush or pressure, I would wait for a nudge to pick out one scroll. Just one. That’s the key. I would pull it from the shelf, open it, and share whatever was there. It could be Scripture, a story, a testimony, a parable, a prayer, a meditative, exercise, a citation from some book. Years of prep comprised of good mentors, loads of reading, and interesting life experiences had loaded the wall. It was just a matter of pulling one item at a time as the Spirit led (that’s a real thing) and sharing them in whatever sequence came.
From Juggling to Shelving
I wondered, in the moment, if I could transpose my stressed-out juggling act into the joy of my old speaking gigs. I pictured the wall and imagined depositing every item on my calendar and in my to-do list into the cubby-holes immediately as they arrived. I could see other scrolls—loads of them—that I hadn’t left there. Surprise scrolls that were pre-planned by Someone else—divine appointments, real life encounters, unexpected gifts, anything but intrusions.
I imagined the Spirit beside me say (in Nelson’s voice), “You don’t have to. You get to.” And the Spirit would pull a scroll and hand it to me. “No juggling. Just take the next scroll I give you. This one. Now.” And I heard, “Some scrolls say Rest. Recover. Reflect. Reflection is not squandering. Some even say Struggle. That’s not the same as crisis or chaos. Struggle is about growth and strength.”
In every case, the other to-dos were still present, but they had to remain shelved until their turn so that I could stay completely present to the one I was on. SO present that I could experience time stopping and a Muse greater than myself involved in my conversations and my listening, my reading and writing, emails and flights.
It meant that the unexpected hour-long call from my godfather David, followed by the unexpected reading from my old friend Paul were not merely joyful interruptions that I could misuse as procrastination from my ‘real work.’ They were gifts of the Spirit, treasured moments of NOW that were in fact the next thing on the shelf and very much my real work—not for putting off what had to be done, but the important things I got to do first. And the other stuff that needed to be done did get done. Not only that, I didn’t have to do that other stuff in my head and nervous system while I was enjoying the first things. And because of that, they weren’t so heavy after all. One scroll at a time. Stay present. Breathe. Done. Next?
Cured!
Just kidding. I wasn’t instantly healed of my habituated juggling obsession yet. But I’ve tasted the goodness of my return to the shelf such that I can feel the internal difference of reframing the same, look-alike day of duties inside me. For readers who perpetually feel like they’re about to drop the ball, maybe this exercise will be of some help.
