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The book of Isaiah is the first of the prophetic books which make up the final section of the Old Testament. In each of these books, God spoke through the prophets to reveal the divine will to the people of Israel, and to call people to return to God’s way. Although the prophets sometimes spoke about the future, they are not to be seen primarily as fortune-tellers. Instead, they are best understood as truth-tellers, bringing words of challenge and comfort to the people of God.
Isaiah lived in the eighth century before the birth of Christ, during the reigns of King Ahaz and possibly King Hezekiah. The first part of the book, through chapter 39, pronounces judgment and doom, while the end of the book, chapters 40 through 66, contains prophecies of hope and restoration, including the words: “Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed” (Isa 56:1). Chapter 56 is in this final portion of the book, and it may have been written by a follower of Isaiah in the sixth century before Christ. The chapter addresses “a dispute about inclusion and exclusion in the community,” writes Walter Brueggemann, “after the great restoration from exile had been accomplished.”
The chapter speaks of God’s covenant being extended, for the first time, beyond the people of Israel. “Happy is the mortal who does this,” said Isaiah, “the one who holds it fast, who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it, and refrains from doing any evil” (Isa 56:2). Any mortal who keeps the sabbath and refrains from evil can now be part of God’s covenant community. This insight by Isaiah was revolutionary, because the purity code of Deuteronomy excluded two particular categories of people: Eunuchs and foreigners. Deuteronomy said that no one who has been castrated “shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord,” nor shall any “Ammonite or Moabite” (Deut 23:1, 3).
But Isaiah offered a new vision of community, one in which all people who honor the Lord in their actions are to be included. Speaking through Isaiah, God said, “To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant ... I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off” (Isa 56:4-5). The tragedy of the eunuch was that he was cut off, literally — no chance of having children to carry on his name. But now, if the eunuch was faithful, God would give him an everlasting name. “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants,” says Isaiah, “these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer” (Isa 56:6-7). That’s remarkable, isn’t it? Those who had once been excluded are now included, because they honor God in their actions and relationships. They are accepted because God wants to be worshiped in “a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa 56:7). God’s place is now open to everyone who keeps the sabbath and holds fast to the covenant.
What a radical shift this was. Suddenly, the community of faith was not limited to people of the same nationality, and being admitted to the assembly of the Lord did not require being a man or a woman in a traditional family. Through Isaiah, God called for barriers to fall in the religious community, which began a movement of inclusiveness that only accelerated when Jesus began his gracious and loving ministry. A strong connection exists between Isaiah and Jesus, since people often see Jesus as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies (e.g. Isa 7:14), and Isaiah is the prophet that Jesus quotes the most (eight times). “Many of Jesus’ miracles are worked for outsiders,” writes historian Garry Wills in his book What Jesus Meant. The miracles of Jesus teach lessons about the reign of God, and “one of the main lessons is that people should not be separated into classes of the clean and unclean, the worthy and the unworthy, the respectable and the unrespectable.”[ii] Jesus himself fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, “Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered” (Isa 56:8).
This movement of inclusiveness matters deeply to God, and it is found throughout the whole of Scripture. Sometimes it sneaks up and surprises us, as it did to a rabbi named Jonathan Sacks, soon after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Rabbi Sacks said that he used to think that the greatest command in the Bible was “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). But then he realized that this command appears in only one place in the Hebrew Bible. More significantly, he said, “in more than thirty places it commands us to love the stranger.” That’s tough. Love the person who is not like us, who has a different skin color, sexual orientation, or cultural background. The challenge of inclusiveness was lifted up first by the prophet Isaiah, and it continues to be a goal for people of faith today. The words “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa 56:7) is one of the Bible’s greatest hits, because it calls us to focus our efforts on welcoming and including all of God’s children in the community of faith.
Questions:
1. Which groups are still excluded from many faith communities, and why?
2. What does it mean to you to be in a “house of prayer for all peoples”?
3. What are the challenges we face when we try to love the stranger?
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