Isaiah 37 – On
hearing the message, Hezekiah tears his garments and goes to the Temple and
sends for Isaiah, wanting Isaiah to plead with Yahweh to punish the Assyrians.
Isaiah sends word back that he is not to be afraid of the Assyrians’ words –
Sennacherib will return to his country when he hears a rumor of something back
at home and Yahweh will “bring him down with the sword” (37:7). Hezekiah
approaches the Temple sanctuary and prays to Yahweh. He acknowledges the
strength of the Assyrians but prays that the “gods” they have destroyed are not
like Yahweh.
Isaiah tells Hezekiah the answer Yahweh has given him; it is
a lengthy oracle.
“The surviving remnant of the House of Judah shall bring
forth new roots below and fruits above. For a remnant shall go out from Jerusalem,
and survivors from Mount Zion. The jealous love of Yahweh Sabaoth will
accomplish this” (37:31-32). And, as for the King of Assyria, “He will not
enter this city, he will let fly no arrow against it, confront it with no
shield, throw up no earthwork against it” (37:33).
That very night “the angel of Yahweh went out and struck
down a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp” (37:36). They
strike camp and leave. His own sons strike him down with a sword and escape,
leaving another son Esarhaddon to succeed him.
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism
Part 32
Yet another area of coincidence or common emphasis is one
that is not often thought of by Friends, but it is nevertheless important. It is the belief that God’s promises are
foundational and trustworthy. When George Fox was a young man, seeking God
and the power of God’s redeeming work, which had been so richly testified to in
the New Testament Scriptures, he knew
that if New Testament believers had experienced Christ’s life and power, then
he and his contemporaries should also be able to experience them. The
promise of redemption offered through Christ was not a delusion or mere words.
Friends continually used language that demonstrated how completely they
believed they could rely upon Christ’s promises to them. Likewise, the Catholic
Church believes in the promises of Christ—in the promise made to Peter that he
was the rock on which Christ’s church would be founded (Matt. 16: 19) and in
the promise of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power (John 14:26) to teach them
and lead them into the fullness of truth. These are real promises, and like the
promises to Abraham and to Moses, they are utterly trustworthy. Anyone who is
brought into that inward experience of God of which Friends speak knows that
the promises of God are palpably real and trustworthy, and this too strengthens
my faith in the Church.
The argument of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century
Reformers seemed to be that the Roman Catholic Church had departed so
fundamentally from the holiness and faithfulness Christ had expected of them
that they had forfeited their claim to the special status these promises seemed
to carve out for them. I do think that
in charging this and in shaking up the Church, they had a prophetic Word from
God that the Church was meant to hear. And ultimately, I believe it was
heard. If people believe that there are still things that need reform, they
have a prophetic responsibility to speak what God gives them to say, but I think God is calling us to struggle over
these things together, not to see imperfections as occasion to go off and be
separate.
The prophets of old
did not leave and start their own communities. We should not either. It
seems to me that the whole vision of and thirst for an eventual unity is
missing in the Protestant denominations I am familiar with. People’s identities
are comfortably tied up in being Quakers or Presbyterians or Episcopalians. To
me, the Catholic Church is not perfect, but it still is the institution on
which the promises rest.
The early months and even years of my return to the Catholic Church were not the easiest. The whole culture of the Church
is different from the Protestant culture I had mostly known in my life—a
different way of praying, of writing about Christ and his disciples, of talking
about the faith, and especially a different way of conceiving of one’s place in
the community of faith. I don’t think
they are very substantive differences, but they can get in the way of feeling
at home. Asked to pray, a Catholic will almost always pray a set prayer
like the “Our Father” or a “Hail Mary”, while a Protestant will pray words that
appear more personal and come to him or her in a more spontaneous way.
The Catholic devotion to Mary caused me problems. I knew
Catholics did not “worship” Mary or think of her as divine. I had little trouble with the reverence
shown toward her as a person who opened herself to God utterly and completely,
who permitted Christ to grow in her. These were virtues any Quaker believer
could agree were modeled in her story. But the repetitions nature of the rosary
went against certain Quaker ideas I had about how important it was for worship
to be Spirit-led and spontaneous. And the frequent talk of visions of Mary, which
are often encountered in Catholic circles, was something I could not relate to.
But these were cultural differences, not theological issues for me.
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