Here Is My Servant In Who My Soul Delights

Traditionally Isaiah 42:1-9 describes one who is known as the Suffering Servant. There is definitely a sense of weakness and vulnerability about this figure in verses 2 and 3. “Here is my servant… he will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street”. This is one who lives among ‘bruised reeds’ and ‘dimly burning wicks’. This sounds like a subjugated person, a slave whose spirit has been broken… a man living from day to day who does what he is told.

However I also notice that this is vulnerability & weakness that has been turned on its head.

Scripture also says, “I have put my Spirit upon him”. And the suffering servant’s task is nothing less than bringing equity and justice to the nations. This is one who will redress the imbalance… And Scripture says, “…he will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice upon the earth”. Wow ! That is no small task for one who is an exiled foreigner in a strange land.

And what or who makes this possible ? v6 “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations… I am the Lord, that is my name.”

I suppose my question here is, ‘Is this what it means to begin living life in ever increasing circles ?

It’s interesting… Abraham Heschel makes the comment that no other problem has occupied OT scholars more than the identity of the Suffering Servant. Who is he ? Is he the prophet who wrote the passage ? Is the suffering servant the whole of exiled Jewish nation ? Or is he the Messiah, the one who is to come ?

A couple of weeks ago I described the writing of Isaiah as deliciously ambiguous. This means that over time it seems to accrete more & more meaning. While a passage like this sits well within history, it is ambiguous because it also sits above history. In a sense it defies time – it is ageless.

That’s the remarkable thing about the Gospel… When people open themselves to the Spirit of God there is something remarkably consistent about the outcome. It gives people particular priorities, it evidences itself in particular actions, it inspires people with particular visions… Over time it establishes itself in ways that turns everyday experience on its head… Imagine for a moment the audacious possibility of a subjugated exiled foreigner, an alien bringing forth justice to the nations. Imagine an expat community of weakened Jewish exiles without a country being given as “a covenant to the peoples, a light to the nations”.

I call this living life in ever increasing circles…   

The Rock From Which You Are Hewn

God’s story woven into lives of ordinary men…

There’s an interesting word of encouragement that the prophet Isaiah gives the Jews when they are in Exile, when they were poised between the choice of assimilation and despair. It says,

‘Listen to me you that pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him and I blessed him and made him many’. 

I like what Walter Brueggemann says about theses verses. He says that Isaiah is saying if you want to seek God, look to the oldest, most embarrassing beginning we ever had. He says firstly, remember Abraham. On the one hand, he is the strange, impressive father of the faith who leaves his home at God’s command & goes out on a long journey. On the other hand, Abraham is also a pitiful figure – often helplessness and filled with fear.  Two times he gives his wife Sarah away to other men to save his own skin. Despite God’s promise of a child with Sarah, he sleeps with Sarah’s servant Hagar, to get an heir.

Often Abraham appears so confused, so unsure, so barely faithful.

And when you are done reflecting on Abraham, remember Sarah your mother. Sarah is the beautiful woman who other men desire. She is also the mother of Isaac, the promise carrier. However, when you remember Sarah, remember her oldness, remember her barrenness, remember her mocking laughter in the face of God when He promises her a son.

Yet when you remember Sarah, remember that this old and pitiful woman now laughs a new laugh – an Easter laugh. God uses her very barrenness to create newness. Sarah is the example for all barren people, who have within them no gift of life, no capacity for faith – yet God does something new and unexpected in the face of all the evidence.

What impresses me about this foundational story of Scripture, is what it says about the way God’s story is unfolding among us. Abraham and Sarah are people we can identify with because they are fragile and tentative, often moving forward with fear & hesitation. These are people just like us.

You know, God’s story often isn’t in the grand epics of history, the stories told by the winners. When I read the large sweep of Scripture, it seems to me that God’s story is mostly unfolding quietly, below the radar, twisting and turning – always with the very real possibility of failure. Yet when we remember this story of faith, remember that it is told and retold through the same fragile stories of other biblical characters. Remember the scheming of a timid Jacob, the stuttering of a reluctant Moses, the paranoid actions of a bipolar Saul, the treachery of a wife stealing David, the depressed and suicidal Elijah…

The very wonder of God’s story is that he achieves his purposes in the world through broken ordinary people, just like us.

Bruggemann says we remember these stories because they model faith and they invite faith.

We remember these stories because when these fragile people centered their stories in God’s story, they lived life BIG – filled with purpose, newness and imagination.

Edge of Chaos

In the last 100 years science has shifted from a more structured view of the universe to one filled with chaos. It seems the universe is constantly forming & unforming, generating & expending tremendous amounts of energy creating and destroying the stars. According to chaos theory the universe is filled with the almost infinite possibility of the next unpredictable moment.

Today, the biological sciences are hotly debating that nature is at it’s innovative best near the edge of chaos. When a natural system fails to position itself in this in-between place it becomes static, out of balance, unhealthy. Eventually it dies. However moving to the edge of chaos creates fluid movement – even upheaval – where both order and disorder are present. Nature itself is suggesting the edge of chaos is the sweet spot for productive change. It seems that chaos is woven into the very fabric of life and the universe.

The Scriptures are filled with a similar notion of the edge of chaos. Alan Hirsch says, “the theologically most fertile parts of the Scriptures are all, yes all, set in the context of the people of God facing significant danger & chaos…”.  Whether it is Abraham being called to leave home and journey to a new land or the harrowing experiences of the Exodus and the Exile, whether it is David’s adventures in becoming king or Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels or even just the book of Acts… none of these describe stable situations. They are dynamic, even life threatening and chaos is ever present.