The first reading in the Lectionary for this Sunday is so short that I am afraid that people will miss it. The passage comes from Isaiah 49:14-15. It reads:
"Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me;
my LORD has forgotten me.”
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you."
This passage was written toward the end of the Babylonian exile as the Persians were preparing to conquer the Babylonians. Isaiah writes these words to encourage the exiled Israelites to return home.
Further, Isaiah isn't writing these words to a community of strangers. He is writing these words to his brothers and sisters in Israelite family. Do we speak such beautiful and encouraging words to our brothers and sisters?
The exile had been short, less than 100 years, but, none the less, it was very traumatic for the Hebrew community. The Prophet Jeremiah even suggested that the Israelites in Babylon should set up shop and prepare to stay forever (he believed Babylon was doing God's work by punishing the Jews for their unfaithfulness).
But Isaiah reminds them of God's tender and compassionate love for God's people. The verse before this passage reads, "For the Lord comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted." God is a mother who has come to heal Her children's pain.
Now, we must understand that that every image of God is as flawed as it is insightful. I've worked with troubled adolescents long enough to realize that mothers do forget their children… families are not perfect. While the image of God presented here by Isaiah will comfort many… it will challenge others. I take comfort knowing that God is much bigger than the images we have for God.
However, I like this passage because it's easy to develop an authoritarian… an out of touch… an emotionless image of God. This passage challenges me to think about God in a different way… as a loving and kind mother. Let's take time this week to reflect and really take to heart this image of God. Is this an image of God that we take to prayer with us? Is this an image of God that our Christian community proclaims in our lives and ministries?
Go out and love… nurture… and remember that God loves you tenderly and completely. Peace turtles!
Jaques Monod, a French Scient wrote in the 70s:
ReplyDelete"If he accepts this message [message of science] in its full significance, man must at last wake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realise that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music, and as indifferent to his hopes as it is to his suffering or his crimes."
These are Nietsches heirs whith whom we need to deal with in 21st century. It is not easy.