Tonight is the night of our dear savior's birth. May God bless us all with His Light and Power and Presence!
Isaiah 36 –
Footnote says this “Appendix” is a poem of return from exile and associated
with Second Isaiah. Modern scholars think the “Second
Isaiah” is not the work of the 8th c. prophet. The name of Isaiah is
not mentioned and the historical setting is 200 years after his time. Jerusalem
has fallen and the nation is in exile. Cyrus is already present. Oracles of
this part are more consoling and remote from the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah. The
style is more rhetorical and repetitive. Monotheism is not only affirmed; it is
expounded. Religious universalism is clearly expressed. Second Isaiah starts in
chapter 40.
In the 14th year of Hezekiah, Sennacherib of
Assyria attacked. They wonder why Hezekiah is so confident that he would rebel,
acting on reliance on his alliance with Egypt “that broken reed. . .which
pricks and pierces the hand of the man who leans on it” (36:6). The cup-bearer
wants those on the ramparts to hear what he is saying. The message is reported
to King Hezekiah.
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism
Part 31
Early Friends, of course, rejected “tradition” as the
Catholic Church defines it as something wholly of man, not of God; but in this it seems to me they were being
inconsistent with their own insight. In a sense they were denying that the
Spirit could every have led the early church to organize itself as it did under
the authority of bishops who were ordained and part of a continuing chain of
leadership linking them to the apostles. Friends denied that the Spirit would
ever have led the church to institute outward sacraments, creeds, and
ordinances to keep the apostolic foundation secure. Friends saw “continuing revelation” as applying only to those gathered
into their own particular vision of the church; the idea would have prospective
validity only. The things the early church had decided were somehow not
part of the chain of revelation, but still it is interesting to compare their
approach to that of the Catholic Church. While both Catholics and Quakers hold
that the Holy Spirit continues to inspire and work in his people and his
church, both strongly insist that any new revelation be consistent with the
foundations laid by the apostles. Our God is not a God of confusion but a God
of order, so claims of new insights must cohere with foundational teaching.
In the Catholic Church the right and duty of discernment on
the issue of what new insights are consistent with the foundation belongs to
the hierarchy, though in practice there is input from the grassroots. Among
Friends, however, the right and duty of discernment with respect to “new
insight into the established gospel” as Robert Barclay called it, devolves onto
the membership as a whole. The
interesting thing is that in both communities—Catholic and Quaker—the process
of accepting new insights is very slow and methodical. In a properly
functioning Meeting, changes in corporate testimony, while always theoretically
possible, are as rare as they are in the Catholic Church. The rules established
by early Friends require virtual unanimity to institute new practices or
approaches. But when changes are
convincing and a strong relationship to the gospel foundations are shown, the
changes brought about under the doctrine of continuing revelation are
impressive. Friends were among the first, if not the first, Christian group
to forbid members in good standing to own slaves. They rejected the stigma of
inferiority that attached to women in other Christian denominations and were
among the first Christian groups to work against the death penalty. Their deep
conviction that was and violence are inconsistent with Christian profession is
widely known and respected. They also were among the first Christians to
challenge class and race privilege as being similarly inconsistent with the
gospel.
On the other hand, Friends did not and do not see the same
“continuing revelation” in the observances and practices that developed in the
early church to preserve and transmit what Catholics call “the deposit of
faith”—that foundation to which Robert Barclay referred, on which the faith is
built. They did not and do not see “continuing revelation” in the methods the
church adopted to assure the soundness of the foundation or to meet the
challenges of growth, persecution, and the deepening insights that came with
both. But I think that the history of
the Christian faith shows that these methods were also important for assuring
that the gospel would survive in the world. Faith in the reality and need
for continuing revelation brings change, but slow respectful change. This is what
I have seen among Friends at their best and in the Catholic Church at its best
as well. The Catholic Church’s past is just much longer and more complex than
is that of Friends.
