Isaiah 42 – This
is the first of four “Songs” of Yahweh’s “servant” – the servant is in part the
chosen people of Israel, but there is some mystery about the one referred to.
I
have endowed him with my spirit
that
he may bring true justice to the nations. . .
He
will neither waver, nor be crushed
until
true justice is established on earth,
for
the islands are awaiting his law (42:1-4).
It may also be that the servant is one of the prophets, but
Christians have seen in these words a reference to Christ.
I,
Yahweh, have called you to serve the cause of
right;
right;
I
have taken you by the hand and formed you.
I
have appointed you as covenant of the people and
light of the nations,
light of the nations,
to
open the eyes of the blind,
to
free captives from prison,
and
those who live in darkness. . . (42:6-7).
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism
Part 36
Quaker spirituality also offers us a way to bring lay voices
into our worship. The combining of Mass and Quaker-style worship that I
experienced at the retreat center might offer a model of how such an
opportunity might be opened to people; or perhaps Quaker-style meetings could
take place in connection with reading Scripture apart from Mass, such as
midweek meetings where people could reflect in silence on the ongoing presence
of Christ’s spirit and grace in their lives.
Quakerism (at lease
in its more traditional form) also offers believers a way of putting the
Scripture in a more central place. The catechism of the Catholic Church
says that “ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ”, but this has
not quite filtered down as it needs to. Many Catholic homilists get bogged down
in approaching the Scriptures in too scholarly or critical a way—almost as if
they are worried that people will take them too literally or uncritically. But
early Friends show us a way of using Scripture that does not require us to take
them as literally true in every detail, but as writings that give us insight
into spiritual truth. They see the Scriptures as the words God’s Spirit brought
forth through men to tell us what we need to know about God’s existence and
nature, God’s intentions with respect to humanity’s place in the creation, our
relationship to him and to our fellow men, our spiritual condition, and the
redemption God has worked to effect in history, including the extension of that
redemption to all people in and through Christ. What difference does it make
that some of these words of Scripture are literature, some history, some hymns
of praise, and others letters or accounts putting the story of Christ in the
context of the larger redemption narrative? The important thing for believers is that the Spirit of God gave these
writing forth, gave them a unity and a power to reveal things about God and our
spiritual condition that we could never know as reliably or as well without
them. It seems to me also that a deep regard for the Scriptures is
ultimately an implied acknowledgment that what the Church teaches about its own
authority is true—that Christ’s Spirit abides in it to guide it into all truth
and make judgments about what is and is not part of his Truth, for the
Scriptures rest on the legitimacy of the Church and its discerning judgment.
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