28^th Sunday of Ordinary Time

I am going to focus on today’s first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, and point out some things that go beyond the words we just heard.  These words, in themselves, are full of promise and might lead to a feeling of utter security, for in looking to the future the prophet says:  “Let us rejoice and be glad that he {the Lord] has saved us, for the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.”  The prophet is there referring, as you would surmise, to Mount Zion, assuring the people that at least a remnant of them will survive to enjoy the divine protection and safety of God’s holy mountain.  Those words could well make us feel complacent, not that Mount Zion might mean anything in particular to us but rather that the Vatican Hill, or our Church in general, will always enjoy God’s protection.  Is that so?

To order my reply to that question, I first went to the book once published by our recently deceased Fr. Joseph, a commentary on the first thirty-nine chapters of the book of the prophet Isaiah, from which today’s first reading has been taken.  The introduction to his book goes into considerable detail about the historical situation during which Isaiah lived.  Even though it deals with only about a half-century of ancient Israel’s history, it can be daunting to keep all the names of Israel’s and Judah’s kings and those of neighboring monarchs straight, rulers like Sargon, Sennacherib, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Menahem, Pekah, Rezin, Tiglath-Pileser, Merodach-baladan, Piankhi, and some others.  It’s good that Scripture scholars have been able to piece together the various relationships among such men and the countries or regions they controlled, but for most of us there is no need to try to remember the detailed history of that period.

Far more important is it to recognize that the primary concern of a prophet like Isaiah or Amos or Hosea was the overall state of society in the Holy Land during those years.  This was clearly summed up by Fr. Joseph when he wrote of “the corruption of [the people’s] sense of justice and compassion toward the weaker members of society, a point on which Isaiah has much to say.”[1]  A few pages later, referring again to “the plight of the poorer members of society,” he writes:  “Often these changes were brought about by legal means, through … judicial bribery  … But whether legal or not, the cost of such [so-called] ‘progress,’ in terms of human misery, was something the prophets thought worthy of condemnation.”[2]

In that line, Abraham Heschel, a person whom Fr. Joseph very much admired, wrote at some length about this issue in his great book titled simply The Prophets.  Rabbi Heschel said, for example, that “the prophet was an individual who said No to his society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency, [and] waywardness … He was often compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what his heart expected.”[3]  For the prophet, there was no “minor” iniquity, some evil that might be overlooked. Not al all!  Any instance of injustice, … hypocrisy, falsehood, outrage, misery” or any other injustice “assumes cosmic proportions.”[4]  “As the God of Israel is concerned with the here and the now, the attention of the prophet is directed upon the social and political issues of the day…”  The prophet’s eye “scans the definite and finite, the insolence and hypocrisy of man, the little cruelties, the silly idolatries. This is why it is not enough for a prophet to be inspired by God; he also must be informed about the world.  The world and its fate are very dear to him.”[5]

This means that it is altogether right for the Church and any of its leaders, from the pope on down, to consider political or social evils in their writings and not restrict themselves to what might be considered the properly traditional topics of prayer and ascetical practices.  Nor should any of us feel absolved simply because we may not have done anything rampantly wrong in this regard.  Abraham Heschel, who among other things traveled to Alabama to participate in demonstrations against the police tactics used against persons protesting the treatment of blacks in that part of the country, and who also was a vociferous opponent of what our government was at that time doing in Vietnam, once said that all of us, in one way or another, are responsible for righting wrongs that we see going on around us.  Among other things, that includes what Fr. Joseph described as “attempts to force events through military might.”[6]

So it is true that today’s first reading may indeed sound as though we have nothing to worry about, to think that “the hand of the Lord” will always be merciful, but that reading must also be understood in light of what we heard in today’s Gospel, whose final line is that “many are invited but few are chosen” (Matt 22:14).  There is no point in trying to determine whether each of us, personally, is or will be among that “few.”  The really important teaching we should take away from today’s readings is that salvation is not something guaranteed just because we might come regularly to worship in church.  The real question certainly includes asking ourselves what we are doing to help those who are really needy, those who truly fear for their safety, those who are themselves just as beloved by God as any one of us.

[1] Joseph Jensen, O.S.B., Isaiah 1-39 (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1984), 24-25.

[2] Ibid., 30.

[3] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Perennial Classics, 1962, 2001), xxix.

[4] Ibid., 4.

[5] Ibid., 464-65.

[6] Jensen, 31.