I knew a sister who in her congregation had been a real peacemaker.
Before she became Provincial, the communities of the province had been torn by
division and conflicts. Through her skill as a leader and by her personal
example she had succeeded in bringing back peace and harmony to her
congregation.
“It must be a great satisfaction to you to know you are a peacemaker,” I said. “Jesus said: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God.’ ”
“Yes, I am happy that peace has been restored,” she said, “but nobody realizes, I am sure, what it cost me in nerves and personal humiliation.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When I began this office, I started with a lot of enthusiasm and idealism. I saw that I was called to an important task. Somehow or other I understood that God wanted me for a special reason, namely, for this work of reconciliation. But I had not realized that it couldn't be done without a lot of personal involvement and personal suffering. I can’t tell you how often I felt lonely and rejected by other sisters. It is only gradually that I have come to understand that the ministry of reconciliation cannot be brought about without personal cost.”
Many of us, I believe, have to go through a similar development in our vocation. It is interesting in this context to see how the same insight, the same gradual discovery of all the implications in the ministry of reconciliation, can be found within the prophecies of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah, too, was full of enthusiasm at the beginning of his ministry. He knew that God intended him to bring his people back.
The LORD says, “Now let's settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow Although your stains are deep red you will be as white as wool” (Is 1:18).
When Isaiah received his call, he was praying in the Temple. I imagine that he was kneeling down in the court of Israel facing the high altar that stood just before the actual inner Temple building. Suddenly in his mind's eye he saw that the whole Temple was filled with God's glory. And right above everything else he saw a throne of God. God himself was sitting on it as a king in the middle of his palace.
I saw the LORD. He was sitting on his throne high and exalted, and his robe filled the whole Temple. Round him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. They were calling out to each other:
“Holy, holy, holy!
The LORD Almighty is holy!
His glory fills the world” (Is 6:1-3).
Isaiah then heard that he was called to purify himself from his sins. An angel came down picked up a burning coal from the altar and cleansed his lips with it. Then he was, as it were, admitted into God's own court. He heard God explained through his angels how he had tried in vain to bring the people of Israel to repentance. “What else can I do?” God asked. Some of the angels advised God to bring even more punishment on the people. “Send them another famine,” one of them said, “then they will surely change their minds.” When Isaiah heard this discussion, he felt a great zeal for God's holiness and also compassion with his own people. In a sincere moment of enthusiasm he volunteered to become God's envoy.
Then I heard the LORD say, “Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?”
I answered, “I will go! Send me!” (Is 6:8).
Thus Isaiah began his prophetic mission. It was a demanding task, but at the same time a glorious career. What a challenge to go out in the public streets and meet the king himself face to face with a threatening oracle from God!
“Ask the LORD your God to give you a sign. It can be from deep in the world of the dead or from high up in heaven” (Is 7:11).
It was a task that had with it the glamour of being a representative of the highest authority in the universe, the most powerful emperor, the King of Kings! Isaiah in this way fulfilled his mission as many of us, I am sure, imagine we will fulfill our ministry of reconciliation. I call this particular stage of our ministry the royal phase. It gives us courage and strength. But if we remain in this phase without further growth, we are in danger of becoming career prophets.
Isaiah, we know, lived in the 8th century B.C. But his prophecies did not die with him. After his death Isaiah’s disciples continued to meditate on the meaning of his life and his words. This was particularly important when Jerusalem was destroyed and the people of Judah taken into exile in 586 B.C. Isaiah’s disciples took the prophecies with them and reflected on their meaning in the context of these new experiences. A very remarkable and important new interpretation arose.
The Jews who lived in exile were, of necessity, reduced to poverty and to a status of subjection. Wherever they were, they may have had to perform menial tasks. They became a minority tolerated by others, but not greatly esteemed. This experience of their new, humble status brought about also the insight that God’s ministry of reconciliation could profitably, and perhaps more effectively, be exercised from within such a condition. The so-called servant prophecies express this very convincingly.
We don’t know for certain whether these servant prophecies refer to one individual. But I believe it to be so. It seems to me that one of the disciples of Isaiah received a special call from God to be a leader among his friends and that he saw himself in a new role, called upon to realize again Isaiah’s ministry, but in a new fashion. He knew that God had called him to be his servant, that God had chosen him and was pleased with him. What was new in the self-understanding of this Deutero-Isaiah was the realization that God had called him not to a glorious and glamorous ministry but to a ministry of gentle and humble service.
He will not shout or raise his voice or make loud speeches in the streets.
He will not break off a bent reed nor put out a flickering lamp.
He will bring lasting justice to all
He will not lose hope or courage he will establish justice on the earth (Is 42:2-4).
Whereas the original Isaiah had been raising his voice in the public streets and had been shouting a message of warning and future punishment, the new servant was called upon to bring God’s justice through a life of gentleness and service. This mission, though exercised in a more humble fashion, was not less ambitious. In fact, whereas Isaiah had only preached God’s message to his own people, Deutero-Isaiah knew God wanted him to bring salvation also to the other nations in the world.
“I have a greater task for you, my servant.
Not only will you restore to greatness the people of Israel who have survived
but I will also make you a light to the nations- so that all the world may be saved” (Is 49:6).
The implications of this insight are of great value. The weight of the ministry has now shifted from conveying a royal message to expressing that message of salvation in one’s own life situation. This becomes even clearer when the person of the prophet is seen to be used by God as an instrument expressing God’s will to save.
The LORD has given me understanding, and I have not rebelled or turned away from him.
I bared my back to those who beat me
I did not stop them when they insulted me,
when they pulled out the hairs of my beard and spit in my face (Is 50:5-6).
I imagine that this particular person, Deutero-Isaiah, did undergo persecution. If the information we find is correct, he may have been falsely accused and put to death by a Babylonian court. His disciples were at first completely taken aback, but later they realized that through these events their master had realised the mission to which he knew himself called. Under the light of further inspiration, they expressed their conviction that their master’s suffering was the instrument God used to bring forgiveness and reconciliation to many. They were also convinced that on account of this vicarious suffering, their master would receive a very high reward from God. These convictions are expressed in the well-known Song of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12). It was a breakthrough in Old Testament theology, for in that song the function of vicarious suffering, in fact the use of suffering at all, is expressed for the first time in very clear terms:
“But he endured the suffering that should have been ours,
the pain that we should have borne.
All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God.
But because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did.
We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received” (Is 53:4-5).
We can see the implication of this new discovery for our own ministry. We too need to realize that God may have a different way of looking at our ministry than we do. Where we might be inclined to stress the aspect of external proclamation and mediation, God would seem to be inclined to give greater weight to the gift of our personality and the cost we are prepared to pay in his service. Thus the paradox of ministry arises. What may seem to result in pain and failure may turn out to be a very fruitful ministry in God’s eyes. The results which God reaps from our efforts may lie on an entirely different plane from what we expected. When we begin to realize this, our ministry enters the phase of the suffering servant.
This may prove a great consolation to us. The frustration and humiliation which necessarily will come our way, if we give ourselves wholeheartedly to God’s service, may turn out to be, perhaps, the most valuable part of our ministry. It may be that we ourselves will not see the immediate outcome of our efforts. It may be that our contribution will not be recognized by others. It may be that for all practical purposes our life will end in death before we have achieved anything in terms of external success. Rut for God it mav have been a very fruitful and successful mission. God’s logic is different from ours. And we know it.
The prophecy of the suffering servant, though revealing the fruit of failure and pointing to future reward and exaltation, was not yet the full picture of the ministry intended by God. We find this expressed in a further re-working of the prophecies in the school of Isaiah in later centuries. It gave rise to the prophecies of Trito-Isaiah. In this last stage there is a greater awareness of the ultimate victory, of the joy and liberation that will come when God brings actual salvation. The prophet now realizes that, even though his ministry will be filled with frustration and suffering it will also bring with it the consolation of true joy and visible happiness.
The Sovereign LORD has filled me with his spirit
He has chosen me and sent me
To bring good news to the poor,
To heal the broken-hearted
To announce release to captives
And freedom to those in prison....
To give to those who mourn in Zion
Joy and gladness instead of grief,
A song of praise instead of sorrow (Is 61:1,3).
We have now reached the deepest insight in the ministry. It is God’s Spirit that makes it possible for us to work for his purpose and speak in God’s name. It is that same Spirit who gave us divine authorization and made us true royal envoys. It is that same Spirit who gives us the strength to carry our sufferings and to understand our apparent failures. But the very same Spirit will also fill our hearts with joy at the happy tidings of liberation which we will be allowed to bring. There is, therefore, in this latest phase, the phase of God’s Spirit, a fuller awareness of redemption and victory. In our ministry we too will be granted this privilege if we sincerely dedicate ourselves to our mission.after the initial glamour has worn off, after we will have been allowed to drink from the cup of suffering and rejection, God will also anoint us with the oil of gladness. We will in ways beyond our own understanding be allowed to see that our work brings true happiness to people, that our healing binds up wounds, that our touch brmgs comfort where there had been sorrow and division It is at this stage that we will truly experience how God’s Spirlt works through us. No longer will our mission be seen as something we do, as something external to us. We will then really experience how God’s Spirit is making use of our total selves, of the pains of our body and the feelings of our hearts, in his service of peace and reconciliation.
Jesus Christ himself was aware of these different aspects or phases in his ministry. We see him quote the various texts I have referred to so far. Are we allowed to uncover in the gospel traces of his own mental and spiritual development? Would it be so impossible to imagine that Jesus, too, volunteered as Isaiah had done before him by saying to his Father: “Here I am. Send me”? Are we entirely wrong to think that Jesus too, though theoretlcally aware of the possibility of suffering, only gradually experienced it as a hard reality by the opposition of the Pharisees and scribes? Could it be that Jesus also, like ourselves, was granted by his Father the joy and happiness of seeing his mission anointed by the fruits of the Spirit? In other words: Could it be that going through these various phases of our calling is a natural growth that should take part in everyone who is serving God as Jesus did?
I find the book of Isaiah a marvelous record of the different aspects and experiences of being a prophet. The early Isaiah shows zeal and idealism. His participation in the glory of the divine majesty remains as a true element of vocation. Next to it, however, and as a further fulfillment of it, the lonely struggles and sufferings of the servant are clearly depicted. This is another element that should never be forgotten. Finally, the consolation of bringing joy and healing are expressed without diminishing in any way what was said in previous prophecies. This juxtaposition also gives us matter for thought. In our own lives we should do a continuous re-reading of our own convictions and ideals. While acknowledging the reality and value of our earlier ideals, we should be prepared to enrich them constantly by new experiences and further growth. God is our Father who gradually draws us closer to himself. He allows us to be ourselves at every moment of our development. He does not deny our past, but calls us ever to greater depths of realization and greater heights of participation in his own being. Every day we should be prepared to learn.
“Every morning he makes me eager to hear what he is going to teach me” (Is 50:4). For God is continuously doing unexpected and exciting things. “Now I will tell you of new things to come, events that I did not reveal before” (Is 48:6). Is it not wonderful to serve such a God?