Friday after Ash Wednesday

 Lectionary: 221

Cry out full-throated and unsparingly,
lift up your voice like a trumpet blast;
Tell my people their wickedness,
and the house of Jacob their sins.
They seek me day after day,
and desire to know my ways,
Like a nation that has done what is just
and not abandoned the law of their God....

We heard a similar expression on Wednesday. Isaiah and the Prophet Joel used the same brass horn to announce God's Word, 

Blow the trumpet in Zion!

proclaim a fast,

call an assembly;

Gather the people,

notify the congregation....

But, once we're together and the Lord has our attention, Isaiah's message is more severe than Joel's; he even resorts to sarcasm: 

Is this the manner of fasting I wish,

of keeping a day of penance:

That a man bow his head like a reed

and lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Do you call this a fast,

a day acceptable to the LORD?

We are not the faithful people we suppose we are, but must he be so severe? Evidently, yes. 

People in a superior position often resort to shouting, threats, insults, sarcasm, and invective as they try to persuade their inferiors to do as they're told. We should not be surprised that the Hebrew prophets use such language when they convey God's word; nor should we suppose that they have misread God's feelings or exaggerated his intentions. From the beginning the Lord spoke to us in human language with human speakers who make no attempt to shield us from their emotions; from neither doting affection nor outrageous anger.  

With rare exception -- I think only of the incident reported in the Book of Daniel (5:5-29) -- God never uses words without a speaker. Nor does the Lord speak without emotion, in the Dragnet language of just the facts, Ma'am. We would not understand God's words of love if they came without intense feeling and overwhelming emotion. We might say, "That does nothing for me," and wonder, "What was that all about?" We would blow God's word off as unimportant or irrelevant. 

A threat we understand. Insults and sarcasm, we get. We use them on one another; we understand the frustration and disappointment behind that kind of talk. 

Nor should anyone suppose that God should not or would not use such language. Who am I to tell God how he may speak with me? If I treasure the covenant God has given and the Word he has spoken, I listen all the more intently to the prophets' invective. 

Every word from God is a word of love, whether it conveys anger, compassion, sympathy, or tenderness. And I am grateful for it. If it comes as a word I'd rather not hear, I must listen all the more intently.