Oh Isaiah…

Oh Isaiah, I can hear and feel the pain you share with us today. The one who had been given the gift of teaching and who knew how to sustain the weary with a word (Isaiah 50:4) is weary now. Despite the mocking and the accusations and the physical beatings he had received, he stayed with the Lord.  I can’t even begin to imagine how Isaiah felt as he tried to stay true to the course the Lord had called him to be on. How long did you preach and teach only to be rejected, tormented, and abused? What gave you the hope and the courage to set your face like flint and know you would not be put to shame? (Isaiah 50:7) In hope and faith, Isaiah said twice that it was the Lord God who helps him and who would vindicate him. (50:7, 8, 9 selected portions)

Isaiah 50:4-9a is a part of the Third Suffering Servant Song which is often read on Palm/Passion Sunday as a part of the liturgy. Of course, it is tied directly to what Jesus would face during his last Passover. Jesus, who rode triumphantly, in peace, into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey just as Solomon and David before him had ridden into the city would face the ire of the Empire. Jesus rode into Jerusalem knowing full well what was ahead of him. He knew that this particular Passover would not end well for him. He knew that instead of the usual Passover lambs being sacrificed, he would be the sacrifice. As a side note, it is said that the gate Jesus rode the donkey through was the same gate that all of the sacrificial sheep would have been herded through on their way to the Temple which would become a virtual slaughter house as all of the lambs were ritually slaughtered for sacrifice. How symbolic and ironic that the Passover lambs and the Lamb of God would both enter through the same gate to die.

Within mere days of his entry, the Temple establishment would be up in arms, silver coins would be exchanged for betrayal, and Jesus would be beaten to within an inch of his life before finally being nailed to the cross to die. And the prophetic words of Isaiah (which I believe originally applied to the prophet himself) would soon apply to Jesus. “I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.” (50:5b-6)

This past week, the late Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Oscar Romero has been on my mind a lot. Another blogger had posted some of his quotes along with a link to the movie about his life starring Raul Julia. In May, the Roman Catholic Church will beatify him, which is the final step before sainthood. Romero himself was an unlikely hero or revolutionary. A quiet priest who took care of his flock (mostly the rich and elite of El Salvador), he was chosen to be Archbishop with the hopes that he would be a quiet and easily controlled leader of the church. In El Salvador, there was a revolution brewing and Jesuit priests, religious, and others were working with the powerless and the oppressed to gain freedom, dignity, and respect.

It was through his interactions with his new flock that Romero’s heart was transformed. He became a spokesman for the masses and was even jailed for speaking out against the government. He reminded me of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his non-violent work for equality. Romero abhorred the violence being used by the revolutionaries just as much as he abhorred the violence being used by the government to suppress and terrorize the population. Following the example of the Prince of Peace, Romero stood with the oppressed and spoke out against the oppressive treatment of the voiceless and powerless by the Empire. This quote from his last sermon struck a nerve with me and I want to share it with you. “Christ desires to unite himself with humanity, so that the light he brings from God might become life for nations and individuals.” (From The Church and Human Liberation, March 14, 1980)

I wonder if Romero was thinking about the Suffering Servant Songs of Isaiah as he walked his walk of faith through the valley of the shadow of death. “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?” (50:7-9a)

Romero’s quote above also rings true to my heart and to what the Isaiah reading for Palm/Passion Sunday is saying to me. The quote (in its entirety following) is from a 1978 homily Romero delivered. “Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they throw at us, we know that we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down to proclaim blessed the poor, blessed the thirsting for justice, blessed the suffering, blessed the peacemaker.”

Jesus rode into Jerusalem to turn the tables on the Religious and Political elite. He came to turn everything upside down. Even his disciples didn’t fully understand that. He had come to break down the barriers which oppressed and divided the people. His non-violent witness against the oppression and the violence of the religious and political Empires would ring out!

So, as we commemorate and remember the triumphal entry into Jerusalem… as we walk through the traditional services of remembrance during Holy Week… as we “go through the motions” so to speak, I encourage you to do far more than just give lip service to Holy Week in your efforts to get to Easter Sunday. As I continue to contemplate the picture at the top of this blog (taken in a church cemetery and ruins near Doolin, Ireland), these thoughts come to mind. Is it a wall being built up? Are we shoring up the structure despite its ruined nature? Or does it represent Jesus’ call to break down the walls that separate and divide us? This wall, I believe, symbolizes the church today. Do we prop up what has always been? Or do we break down barriers and seek to follow the one who blesses the outcast?

Call me crazy, naive, or idealistic if you want to. But I believe that I will stand with Isaiah… with Jesus… with Romero… “Let us stand together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?” (50:8b-9a) My prayer is that the church… Christ-followers… will stand as an example of the one who calls us to love God with all that we are as well as to love our neighbor and even our enemies as ourselves. There is too much hatred and division in the world today… what we really and truly do need is more love… God’s love!

I leave you with this final quote from Romero… “I don’t want to be an anti, against anybody. I simply want to be the builder of a great affirmation: the affirmation of God, who loves us and who wants to save us.”

Dear reader, will you stand with me?