God tells Isaiah to preach until the destruction of the city. Wait, what?!

In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the prophet asked asked God how long should he preach this message to the people:

“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.” 
10 Make the mind of this people dull,
   and stop their ears,
   and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
   and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds,
   and turn and be healed.’ 

In response God said Isaiah should preach until:

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"Until cities lie waste
   without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
   and the land is utterly desolate; 
12 until the Lord sends everyone far away,
   and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. 
13 Even if a tenth part remains in it,
   it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak
   whose stump remains standing
   when it is felled.’
The holy seed is its stump. 

Growing up this was taught to me that God would make the people deaf and dumb and then because of their deafness and dumbness God would destroy the city. 

I would offer up that the deafness, dumbness and destruction is not from God but from the people. Here is what I mean.

God tells the prophet to listen but do not comprehend, look but do not understand. What is God asking them to listen and look at? God is asking them to listen and look at the way the people are acting toward one another. The land lacked justice and compassion and as a result the people were full of bitterness and hatred toward one another. It was taught by the culture of this time that the only person that mattered was their little tribe. It was taught that to give handouts was a waste of time and enabling freeloading. It was taught that foreigners were dangerous and that you cannot trust anyone. 

As such, God desired for the people of Israel to look and listen to these cultural messages but to not understand, comprehend or embody them. For the cultural values of "self first" were destructive. God desired the people to turn from these selfish ways and be healed.

Isaiah was to preach this message of looking but not understanding until the city lay in ruin. God does not cause the city to fall and people to be homeless, but this desolation was the direct result of their selfish behavior. So keep preaching the message of see but do not embody until the selfish behavior has cannibalized itself. Do not fall prey to this selfish way of life for it leads to destruction. Even is just a little bit of self serving behavior is left in the culture, it will continue to cause destruction. Selfishness, greed and inhospitable are powerful forces for destruction and must be allowed to burn themselves out.

Thus those who remain, those who do not burn themselves out from greed and fear, this group will be the stump by which God's grace and mercy will grow from.

No Longer Asking How I Want to be Remembered

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Today marks what is known in the liturgical calendar as All Saint's Day. It is the day the Church remembers the saints who have died and who continue to teach and guide us even as they are no longer walking among us. Those who have come before us have much to teach us, if we could take the time to listen and see. 

Many of us think about how we want to be remembered when we die. This is a fine question. It forces us to consider the ways we live our lives and the story that people tell about us. It is a social check to encourage people to be kind and generous. You don't want to be remembered as a curmudgeon do you? 

Recently, I heard someone say that they used to ask themselves how they wanted to be remembered, but then something dawned on them. How they want to be remembered is not as interesting compared to the question, "Why do I want to be remembered at all?" 

The question of how we want to be remembered challenges our outward actions, but why we want to be remembered challenges our desires and motivations. It is our desires that drive action, thus our desires need to be examined and vetted.

Why do you want to be remembered at all?

The Danger of Patriotism

Years ago in my undergraduate studies at St. Mary's University, one of my political science professors taught a year-long class that called for the class to set up a fictional land's government. We had elections for different offices and each class period we were given situations that this fictional nation faced. As a class we had to follow the laws we set up and come to some sort of way forward.

It was my favorite class. 

It was in this class that I was voted as the leader of the opposition party and the debates were often intense. As the opposition leader, I constantly feuded with the the majority ruling party's president. At the end of one intense discussion, our professor pulled the class together for a review of the "legislative activity" and set us up for the next day's events. It was in this review that our professor stated something that has stuck with me to this day. 

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The danger of patriotism is that it does not allow repentance of the sin of the nation it celebrates. 

My professor said this idea was from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and a simple Google search has pointed to Bonhoeffer's Ethics book as the source for this thought.

The greatness of a nation is in its ability to admit where it has gone wrong, how it is perpetuating sin, atoning for acts of injustice and reconciling with its failures. 

When we are unable to admit that our nation has and is participating in sin, then we have fallen prey to the danger of patriotism. 

Loving The Enemy is the Problem

Peter Rollins recently gave a wonderful reflection on the Liturgists podcast episode entitled Enemies. I will paraphrase one of his ideas - loving the enemy is the problem. 

Here is what I think he is getting at. 

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Jesus said that we are to love our enemies. This is noble and the call, however, rather than loving our enemies we have a love for the enemy. Put another way, rather than showing compassion and loving kindness to those we call our enemies, we love having an enemy. We love having someone/something in our lives that we love to hate. We love the enemy, and that is the problem.

By having an enemy we are able to rally our tribe. We are able to motivate people with fear of the other. We are able to define who we are by who we are against. In this way, we love the enemy. 

So it is not too far off the mark to say that President Trump loves President Obama, the media and Hillary Clinton. Trump loves the enemy. Likewise, progressives love President Trump, the NRA and Steve Bannon. 

Notice that in Luke, Jesus calls us to love your enemies not to love the enemy:

‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6)

Until we repent of our need to love the enemy, or put another way, until we hate the idea of having an enemy, we will continue to be pulled apart.