Comforting Haftarah #5 (and also #3... sort of): Do NOT Ignore the "IF"!

Do you know what feels really great? Knowing you have God on your side. What better feeling could there be? You're invincible! God is unequivocally, unwaveringly,

unfailingly on your team. You know, it almost - almost - makes you think you could do absolutely anything, even the most reprehensible acts, and God would forgive it all. Hey, just look at what Isaiah says in (the first half of...) this week's Haftarah: "'My loyalty shall never move from you, nor My covenant of peace be shaken,' says Adonai, who has compassion on you." (54:10) It seems so comprehensive, so impenetrable... you ALMOST couldn't blame a person - someone who saw him/herself as a loyal and faithful adherent - for getting drunk on this power, for justifying every abhorrent behavior by saying "God loves me, and that will never change." Almost...

I'm really struggling right now, to be totally honest with you. As a clergy member, a pastoral leader who receives people in my office, often people who are grieving,
vulnerable, and some who are innocent and naive pre-teens, the newspaper headlines cut me so incredibly deeply. I have been reading the stories of Catholic priests abusing their positions and abusing children, and the church allowing it and/or enabling it to continue, with much the same horror as I'm sure you have. But I also think I feel that pain somewhat differently, because I have the same kind of title, and am given that same level of trust. I have an office with a door that COULD close, and I both cannot fathom AND cannot stop thinking about how others with these same privileges turned them into instruments of terror. As a faith leader, I am struggling. Something is very, VERY wrong in our system, and some sort of major, sweeping change is really needed to cleanse us of this scourge.

I know that last sentence sounds kind of dramatic, but we cannot take this lightly. We are all injured by the abuse of these children. This is about more than celibacy, and we, as a society, need to reexamine our attitudes around sex-standards and expectations for men/boys and women/girls,

slut-shaming in our culture, victim blaming, and perhaps even societal assumptions that monogamy is right for everyone, with one other person, for an entire lifetime. These atrocious stories point to a wide-spread disease - THAT is the crucial message underneath all of this, and we simply cannot afford to miss it. The same is true of our Haftarah. There's a surface-level teaching, and a vital, glaring instruction running just below the text. On top, the words are saying that God is behind us 1,000%... but we all ignore an important word at our own peril: IF!! If you obey the laws, if you are kind and compassionate, if you are a crusader for justice, equality, and mercy, and IF you care about others as much as you do your own security, safety, and wealth - THEN you get God's protection. But only IF. Only, only, only "IF"...

You see, that same text - our Haftarah - also references the flood of Noah. It says God won't flood the earth again, wipe the slate clean of our sins. But Isaiah goes on
to say that all of this is true IF we "give heed," "incline the ear," and "hearken" to God (55:2-3). When we mistreat our neighbors and abuse the innocent, no amount of fake-holiness, well-constructed sermon, or charitable giving can save you from God's purifying floods... When we rest on our laurels and assume God's favor, we get in trouble. No one should be resting, and no one should be assuming. We have work to be done. We have to examine our society, and examine our values that spawn this level of evil and allow it to fester. We are in Elul, a month devoted to reflection, and it leads straight into the High Holidays. We've got a lot of soul-searching to do. This plague is hurting all of us, and hurting us to our very core. Let's get to work.

CC images in this blog post:
1. Courtesy of Chan Walrus on Pexels.com
2. Courtesy of Will Folsom on Flickr
3. Courtesy of SmilingHarrySyphilis on DeviantArt.com
4. Courtesy of Dallas_Foodie on Flickr