Even Fools Will Be There!

(Lectionary for December 11, 2016)

Once again in this brief essay I wish to show just how radical this Advent season can be. In week one for this year we all were bid to “beat our swords into plowshares” and “to learn war no more.” Then in week two we all were asked to stop judging others only by what we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears, but rather employ the lenses of justice and righteousness as we interact with our fellow human beings. In this third week we find still another portrait of the new world inaugurated by the coming of Jesus. And this new challenge revolves around a contested bit of Hebrew translation.

I must begin the discussion by stating unequivocally that the NRSV reading of a portion of this text is simply incorrect and, as such, offers a false picture of what the prophet has in mind in his extraordinary attempt to suggest the amazing freshness of his oracle. It first must be concluded that Is 35 rather hangs in the air in its context. Following Is 34’s sharp oracle against foreign powers wherein those nations that oppose the chosen people of YHWH—places like Edom (Is 34:9), long an antagonist of Israel— will be destroyed in very unpleasant metaphors, turning “streams into pitch and soil into sulfur” (Is 34:9), planting “thorns in its strongholds and nettles and thistles in its fortresses” (Is 34:13). Then we read the blazing promises of Is 35, followed by the prose account of the Assyrian Sennacherib’s threat against Jerusalem, late in the 8th century BCE. Precisely why Is 35 stands between these two chapters, the first a furious assault on Israel’s enemies, and the second a semi-historical account of a war of words between an Assyrian emissary and the frightened leaders of Jerusalem, is at first not clear. Little wonder that Is 35 has served for centuries as a sort of prefiguring of what the world will be like when Messiah comes; for Christians that expectation h(Lectionary for Deceas been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth and his miraculous birth in Bethlehem.

However, a possible reason for Is 35’s placement may perhaps be suggested when a better translation of Is 35:8-9 is offered. Here is the NRSV’s rendering:

(8)“A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;

the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.

(9) No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.”

This translation provides a fairly typical picture of YHWH’s promise to protect the chosen Israel at the expense of its enemies. The new highway, the Holy Way, will be exclusively for the chosen ones. The unclean, often a metaphor for the enemies of Judah, and the “lions,” a representative of all “ravenous beasts,” will not threaten this Way in order that only “the redeemed shall walk there.” In the new world of YHWH, the highways are only for God’s people; no enemies need apply.

Is not such a binary way of viewing the world still deeply rooted in us? We faithful ones are uniquely members of the exclusive club of God, and those others, who refuse to believe as we believe, to act as we act, are finally on the outside looking in. They may only walk the wonderful highway of God if they become like us. We win, and you lose. There can be no accommodation for difference; there is always a litmus test for inclusion in the redeemed group.

Of course, there is too much in our Bible that suggests precisely that way of thinking. One need only turn to many psalms of imprecation (58, 137 for chief examples) to discover appalling attacks against those who dare think differently than we think, who imagine that their ways can in any way be acceptable to God. And once we decide that “they” are not “us,” our next step is too often an assault against them as evildoers and monsters, fully worthy of exclusion and finally death, if not at our hands than at the hands of some destroyer or other. I need hardly site modern examples that thrive in our own time: Muslims, LGBTQ, women, and on and on. We are right, and they are wrong, is a cry that is heard throughout the world; we do not need any more of such simplistic and dangerous binary thinking!

Let us begin to obliterate such nasty simplistic reflection by retranslating this text from Isaiah 35. Actually, the NRSV footnotes provide the beginning of a more appropriate reading.

(8) And there shall be a highway there; it shall be named Holy Way;

the unclean shall not miss it (NRSV footnote “pass it by”);

it shall be a walking way for them (NRSV footnote);

even fools shall not go astray.

(9) No lion shall be there;

no ravenous beast shall rise on it;

they shall not be found there.

The redeemed ones shall walk there!

With this translation, more attuned to the Hebrew text, the portrait of the new world of YHWH utterly changes. Now the new Holy Way, authored and created by YHWH, is built not only for the chosen ones, but equally for the “unclean” and for the “fools.” Both of these terms have a long history in the biblical text; I urge you to grab your concordance and trace their many uses across the centuries of scriptural composition. What you will discover is that the “unclean,” as I noted above, are often those who do not belong to the inner group of the chosen. Their uncleanness renders them unworthy for inclusion in the select group of YHWH’s people. Likewise, “fools” are regularly contrasted with the “wise,” those clever and insightful enough to avoid the depredations of fools, those constantly attacked especially in the Proverbs suggesting a category of persons beyond the pale of help and hope.

Now observe the walkers on the new highway of YHWH; both unclean and fools are on the Holy Way, too! In this new world there can no longer be us against them. We earthly humans can no longer afford the absurd luxury of dividing the human race between the acceptable and the unacceptable, between the worthy and the unworthy. Our tiny threatened planet must move beyond such ridiculous and catastrophic binary ways of thinking, lest we divide our world into a mass of haves and have-nots, sowing the seeds of a terrible and ferocious war of all against all. Those we privileged have named “unclean” and “fool” must join our walk on the Holy Way if we are to avoid a future too monstrous to contemplate.

Some have said that 2016 America represents the most divided country in our history. Whether that is historically factual or not should not allow us to avoid the reality of our deep divisions. Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote of 2016 by over two million ballots; that is fact. Yet, Donald Trump clearly won the Electoral College vote and will be the 45th president. Just today, Nov. 28th, Mr. Trump tweeted that Hillary’s vote total was the result of literally millions of what he called “fraudulent” votes. There is absolutely no evidence for such a claim. It does demonstrate my point; we are a deeply divided people. Our division is primarily the result of our frozen binary thinking; Trump is right and Hillary is wrong, or Hillary is right and Trump is wrong. We gain nothing by such formulations.

Unless those we name unclean and fools are welcome on God’s highway, we simply can make no progress in our fractured world. Here in this third Sunday of Advent, once again the ancient prophets offer to us fresh ways to reclaim the promises of YHWH for our time, better preparing us for the radical new ways of the Christ who is about to be born among us. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and bring us new ways of thinking and living where all are welcome onto your new Holy Way.