That Ripping Sound…
From Isaiah 1 (New King James Version) – 21 How the faithful city had become a harlot! It was full of justice; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers. 22 your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.
Two of the lenses through which I tend to interpret Scripture are as thick as Coke bottle glasses, and my prescription from the Divine Optometrist may or may not be helpful to other interested parties. I am especially likely to hunt for continuity in any biblical list, or between any verse and the next, or any topic and the next. Second, I am finding that my training and work as a counselor tends to provide much of the mental furniture I move around in order to approximate ultimate meaning.
Admitting this perhaps unusual disposition, I'm fascinated by Isaiah 1:21-22. Constitutionally, I'm unable to see this as simply a list of indictments, serious as sexual sin, murder, and mercantile chicanery might be. The word "attachment" lends a lurid glow from overhead, like a flickering neon sign with two of the T's burned out. God has already in Isaiah 1 pointed out ambivalent attachment patterns in His people toward Him. They check in to comply with the Law, but they don't give their whole hearts or their whole wallets. This shows in how religious individuals treat vulnerable humans.
Surprise! The judgment beginning in the house of God enfeebles Jerusalem. Harlotry exposes people who desperately want to attach, on their terms. Murder draws a bead on separation. Pulling and pushing, tearing anything that might constitute a city's civil fraying fabric, ripping is audible. If relationships won't satisfy pent-up desires of a people, or if that people habitually severs those relationships at the first sign of disagreement, they must find a more manageable substitute. Enter stuff. Buy it. Sell it. Cheat with it. It, unlike people, won't complain. Thus we arrive at the judgment of a coarse, tawdry culture. Nobody prizes it, but nobody wants to prioritize the individual relationships irreducible in healthy culture.
Two of the lenses through which I tend to interpret Scripture are as thick as Coke bottle glasses, and my prescription from the Divine Optometrist may or may not be helpful to other interested parties. I am especially likely to hunt for continuity in any biblical list, or between any verse and the next, or any topic and the next. Second, I am finding that my training and work as a counselor tends to provide much of the mental furniture I move around in order to approximate ultimate meaning.
Admitting this perhaps unusual disposition, I'm fascinated by Isaiah 1:21-22. Constitutionally, I'm unable to see this as simply a list of indictments, serious as sexual sin, murder, and mercantile chicanery might be. The word "attachment" lends a lurid glow from overhead, like a flickering neon sign with two of the T's burned out. God has already in Isaiah 1 pointed out ambivalent attachment patterns in His people toward Him. They check in to comply with the Law, but they don't give their whole hearts or their whole wallets. This shows in how religious individuals treat vulnerable humans.
Surprise! The judgment beginning in the house of God enfeebles Jerusalem. Harlotry exposes people who desperately want to attach, on their terms. Murder draws a bead on separation. Pulling and pushing, tearing anything that might constitute a city's civil fraying fabric, ripping is audible. If relationships won't satisfy pent-up desires of a people, or if that people habitually severs those relationships at the first sign of disagreement, they must find a more manageable substitute. Enter stuff. Buy it. Sell it. Cheat with it. It, unlike people, won't complain. Thus we arrive at the judgment of a coarse, tawdry culture. Nobody prizes it, but nobody wants to prioritize the individual relationships irreducible in healthy culture.
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