Those experiencing rejection because of their sociopolitical identities can know that God does not condone discrimination, that God’s promises are a proclamation of reversal.
At best, a community’s accumulated power lies not just in its ability to tear others down but in a desire to use Grace-given resources to affirm what oppression never can – that all are worthy of love, care, life, and dignity.
Many foundational myths of community formation and development situate “after the storm” as the moment when positive change began to happen for them as a people… Isaiah 53:4-12 can be understood as an act of collective storytelling to imagine life “after the storm.”
As a motif of Easter grace, the mountain is a place of new beginnings and renewal for all who seek abundant life.
If Christians believe in a God of the oppressed, it is incumbent upon them to similarly locate themselves on the side of the oppressed.
Embodying the best of the prophetic tradition, the text encourages us to consider that religion, in fact, does have functions: liberation, feeding the hungry, inviting vulnerable strangers into our homes, and undoing injustice.
Everyday life gives us ample opportunity to fulfill all righteousness, at least as far as the gods of global capital are concerned. Building credit, contributing to a 401K plan, purchasing ordinary goods produced through an extraordinary supply chain, we participate in the enchanted world of mammon, in which money defies space and time to make and remake a world that bears its image. But in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus inhabits a different kind of story about God and the world, about empire and capital.
The promise of a new world, all memories of suffering erased, seems like a gift. But for
whom?
Isaiah’s condemnation of vain worship is not a promotion of faith over works. Rather, it’s a vision of faith as constituted by the work of justice.
In casting the return from exile as a new exodus, Second Isaiah activates an ambiguity in an ancient poem in light of new political realities.
The political message of the ambiguous reference to a stump in Isaiah 6 might lie not in the text itself but rather in the history of its redaction.
When we think about Christmas, do we associate it with charity or justice? Christmas certainly appears to be associated with charity in our larger culture. In contrast, Isaiah 9:2–7 reminds us that the lectionary readings for the season consistently focus on justice.