The passage from Isaiah is a message of healing, that those who are trodden down shall be delivered from those who oppress them, that God will stop the unjust in the midst of their works. And yet, lest we who judge the unrighteous (from our privileged vantage point) be overcome by self-righteousness, the final verses tell us that the perpetrators of injustice, too, will “come to understanding” and “accept instruction.”
The readings from Revelations elaborate on the vision of the Holy City, where the veil of cultic mediation is removed and we see directly by the light of God. We see a union between the garden of Genesis and the City, hinted at by the river and the Tree of Life (the other tree in the garden).
Still, a tension appears in both passages: the message of openness and inclusiveness—the open gates, the reciprocal movement of light and glory between the Holy City and the nations. However, the passage also implies separation of the holy from the unholy, those who are omitted from the book of life. Is this a restriction on the city, a statement about exclusion, or is it an affirmation of the essential goodness (and therefore) safety of the city? In light of Isaiah, I am inclined to see it as the latter, as an ultimate resolution rather than an eternal division.
Elizabeth displays remarkable cognizance of what has occurred with Mary and expresses wonder and praise for God and for Mary’s response to God. Yet, today I notice that, in her Magnificat, Mary doesn’t focus on herself all, but on the work of God in the past and for the future. She is not triumphant about retribution against perpetrators of evil, but on the character of God and God’s dealing with people. It is a remarkable statement of faith, and totally unlike the self-referential faith most of us possess in which we attend mostly to how God affects us. The quick reversal of fortunes, the precariousness that marks life, is highlighted in the Gospel of Luke; we hear similar reversals in the Sermon on the Plain. Yet neither Mary nor the Sermon treats these reversals as retributive justice. Perhaps we can hear in this fact, and in the precariousness of life itself, as expressions of the harsh love of a God whose goodness and holiness remain to us inscrutable.
So what is our environmental application today? Is it that tables turn and fortunes change, that God cares for the weak, for the victim? Is it not also that God cares for those who cannot see or hear the truth, who refuse instruction? Could this be a message of hope, not for a miracle to avoid environmental disaster, but to trust in the presence of God regardless, a reminder to those of us who nurse the coals of our “righteous” anger that God loves the sinner and the sufferer, the generations to follow, and the earth with its uncountable living creatures, all of whom suffer from the choices we—all of us—make today.
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