Obadiah
There is just one chapter to this book. It contains a vision
and a message from Yahweh concerning the land of Edom, the land Esau, Jacob’s
brother, was given in the southern Dead Sea region and Jordan.
The message is addressed to Edom, which has become too
proud: “I will cut you down to size among the nations; you will be greatly
despised. You have been deceived by your own pride because you live in a rock
fortress and make your home high in the mountains” (2-3). They think the physical security they have from the people
around them will always protect them.But “even if you soar as high as eagles
and build your nest among the stars” (4), Yahweh will now “fling” Edom down.
Renowned for its wisdom, it will be reduced to idiocy; warriors will be seized
with terror (8-9).
Edom is being punished for its
behavior at the time of Jerusalem’s fall – perhaps it took advantage of the
fall and occupied the city. “[Y]ou stood by as strangers carried off his
riches, as barbarians passed through his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem”
(11).
They gloated and pilfered treasure; they blocked fugitives
escaping and handed over people to their enemies: “As you have done, so will it
be done to you: your deeds will recoil on your own head” (15).
The House of Jacob “shall be a fire, the House of Joseph a
flame, the House of Esau stubble” (18).
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism -
“What Did I Say?”
Part 9
Christ begged his disciples to remain one in him, to be so completely
one “that the world may believe that you [God] sent me [Jesus]” (John 17:
23). We have not been faithful to him in
this. We are now very much divided—perhaps not with as much hostility as in
the past, but still very much divided and mostly over things that seemed
increasingly meaningless. My own sense of it was that the Catholic Church came
the closest to being the church that Christ had founded. It went back to
apostolic times. It had a sense of itself as the bearer of Christ’s promise to
Peter that he would build his church on him and give him the keys to the
kingdom (Matt. 16:18-19).
The Church saw itself as charged
with Peter’s love of Christ and his charge to feed Christ’s sheep (John 21:
15-17). But the Church was not only the
promise bearer; it was also the spouse who had gone astray and become worldly
and corrupt and unfaithful, the one God’s wrath had been poured down on and
scattered, just like the people of God’s first promise.
Out of this jumble of insights,
coming as they did against the backdrop of frustration and struggle I felt
embroiled in as a Friend, ultimately came a sense of clarity, a sense that God
was called me to return to the Catholic Church. Indeed, even my sense of what it meant to be faithful as a Quaker seemed to require going back
to the Church. When I talked with people about it, the responses I got were
interesting. Curiously, most of the positive feedback I god came from Quaker
friends. It was widely appreciated in
Quaker circles that there were aspects of Quaker spirituality and Catholic
spirituality that overlapped or coincided: the belief in Christ’s “real
presence”, for example, or Friends’ notion of “continuing revelation”, which is
similar to the Catholic view of the developing tradition to which they attach
such importance. There were also the
mystical elements that were similar. One Quaker minister I knew actually
admitted to me that he too sometimes mused over the idea that Quakers might
really be considered a kind of religious
order for lay people in a Catholic context.
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