Today’s Scripture Reading (June 24, 2017):
Isaiah 48
Hold on to truth loosely. Truth can
only sit in the palm of your hand; it can never be
grasped tightly. I know, the words seem strange for those of us who believe
in an ultimate truth. But ultimate truth has a way of shifting under the strain
of a firm grip. And often we end up holding onto something that is not truth, but something else; something that at best is a derivative of truth.
This is the charge that Isaiah lays at the feet of
the exiles in Babylon, you have grasped onto something that is not truth. It is likely that the exiles were confused about why this had all
happened to them. After all, were they not the chosen children of God? Did they
not have a special relationship with the Creator of the universe? How was it
that that relationship had placed them in the position in which they now found
themselves, forced to be strangers in a strange land? Why did God allow this to
happen?
Isaiah reminds them of the truth that
they had maybe forgotten. They were the descendants of Jacob, which means that
they were Israel, even though they went by the name of Judah. They were not all
that different from the Northern Kingdom of Israel which had been taken into
exile almost two centuries earlier. And the real problem was that they had
invoked the name of God, just as their cousins of the Northern Kingdom had
before their exile, but they had not invoked his name in truth and righteousness. Somehow, in grasping onto
the truth, they had lost both orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right
behavior.) They had settled for what seemed right to them instead of what God
had declared to be the correct path for his children.
I often look at the Christian Church, and I wonder what Isaiah might say to
us today. The Western Church has grasped onto to truth tightly. And somehow, in
our grasping of that truth, we often seem
to have lost the idea of how to love – especially how to love through our
differences. The danger of grasping onto truth tightly
is that God never gets to adjust what it is that we believe. The path to hate,
as was evidenced on a baseball diamond outside of Washington D.C. just over a
week ago, is too easy. Love and
discussion through our differences are
hard, but it is what fulfills both our orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
To paraphrase Moses comment for the Christian
Church, this is the only thing that we need to hold onto tightly. “Hear, O [Church]:
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
“Do not seek revenge or
bear a grudge against anyone among your
people, but love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the Lord” (Leviticus
19:18).
He is the Lord, and to that, we can
never let go.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 49
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