Prepare to Listen. I am the LORD, your Holy One.
Prayerfully Read Isaiah 43:15-16A, 18-21 15I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. 16Thus says the LORD, …. 18Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20The wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. Prayerfully Wonder The exiles in Babylon were mostly from the privileged upper class, who’d lived the good life in Jerusalem and wanted it back. To them the LORD said, “Do not remember the former things.” If life had been good for them, it hadn’t been good for the masses, who struggled with poverty and oppression. The nostalgic longing of the wealthy for former things wouldn’t help the poor, but neither would it help the rich because “focus on the past keeps you from attending to the now.”[1] Therefore, God commanded, do not remember. Don’t remember because, says God, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” No, they didn’t because they refused to relinquish their memory of an idealized past. Settled in despair in exile they looked back to days of prosperity and ease, entitlement and privilege. No, they couldn’t see the new thing God was already doing, and didn’t know, “If we do not perceive, we will not receive.”[2] The new was too unimagined, too surprising, too unfamiliar. We too long for the good old days. We want the U.S. to be ‘great again,’ and ‘take our country back.’ To us God says, ‘Do not remember the former times.’ God is doing a new thing. To perceive and receive it we must let go of the treasured old and resist being so “preoccupied with what is gone that we miss the new gifts of God by our facing backward.”[3] Messiah ushers in a surprising newness to be embraced in faith. If fear and insecurity make us cling to the past and refuse new possibilities, we’ll neither see nor be able to accept God’s new thing. Heed the prophet: do not remember former things. As Halík quipped, “you can’t enter the water that has already flowed away in the river of time.”[4] Prayerfully Reflect What do you need to relinquish in order to see God’s new thing? Prayerfully Respond Lord, help me resist clinging to the old so that I’m able to see and participate in the new that springs forth from you. Amen. Live obediently. Forget in order to remain open to receive God’s new thing. [1] Brueggemann, W. Tenacious Solidarity. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. 2018, p. 185. [2] Brueggemann, 2018, p. 186. [3] Brueggemann, 2018, p. 189. [4] Halík, Tomáš. Patience With God. NY: New York: Doubleday. 2009, p. 111.
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