The pointing of the finger,
and speaking of wickedness,
And if you give yourself to the hungry,
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness,
And your gloom will become like midday.
And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water
whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:9-11 (NASB)
Incline your ear, O Lord,
and answer me;
For I am afflicted and needy.
Do preserve my soul,
for I am a godly man;
O my God, save your servant
who trusts in you.
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
For to you I cry all day long.
Make glad the soul of your servant,
For to you O Lord,
I lift up my soul.
Psalm 86: 1- 4 (NASB)
. . .
Isaiah 58 is so beautiful that I almost want just to type it over again, and more of it. What can I possibly say in addition to 'the mouth of the Lord'? Or I might just add the passage from Matthew's gospel that tells of the calling of Levi, and concludes with Jesus' explanation that he came 'not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' Today's Mass readings are rich, and in some ways quite straightforward: God calls us to receive his mercy. Sinners need it, and the psalmist prays for it. God also calls us to be merciful. So Isaiah reminds us, in the loveliest prose.
That might, though, leave us thinking that we receive mercy and then give it. Maybe (I am sure sometimes this is my unconscious supposition) we should be full before we give--satisfied by God's mercy, we show that mercy to others. But Isaiah suggests that it doesn't work that way. Isaiah calls us to 'satisfy the desire of the afflicted' from the discomfort of our 'scorched places' and in the frailty of our weak bones. The 'spring of water' is not what we are before we attend to the needy, but is what God makes in us as we do.
I find this a very hard saying. With four young children--including a toddler and a girl with Down Syndrome who's just about to enter adolescence--and a challenging job as a lecturer in a theological college, I often feel stretched pretty thin. Usually I feel more like an empty pail than a spring of water. Can I refuse to meditate on my emptiness, and look for the 'hungry' and the 'afflicted' ('look out ... for the interests of others' says Philippians 2.4!)? Maybe. Maybe that is what it is, concretely, to 'lift up my soul' to the Lord, to trust in God for my help, my strength, and my satisfaction.
Whether I find myself able or not, it seems like Lent is a good time to try.
Deo gratias.
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