From the Prophet Isaiah:
Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees,
who write oppressive statutes,
to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be your spoil,
and that you may make the orphans your prey!
What will you do on the day of punishment,
in the calamity that will come from far away?
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Isaiah 10:1-3a (NRSV) – December 20, 2012.)
The first word of this bit of Isaiah in Hebrew is often translated “Woe” but here in the New Revised Standard Version, it has been rendered “Ah”. The Hebrew is hôy ; it is a negative exclamation pronounced “oy!” Perhaps the “woe” translation is better. However, the construction “woe to you . . . . ” has taken on an oracular connotation to modern ears and that is not what the prophet is saying here. He will later make prediction about these oppressors, but for now he is simply making an indictment.
It is an indictment against the leaders of his own community. This is not a part of the prophet’s writings in which international politics play any part whatsoever; this is a complaint against his own people.
Whenever I read the prophets’ writings and they begin a statement with this Hebrew word hôy, I often wonder what tone of voice to use. I got a clue recently while talking to a Jewish friend.
My friend is a 75-year-old woman. She may be the only Jew in my small town; she claims to be but I don’t think she is. A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I were together with some other people at a luncheon. We were talking about the current “fiscal cliff” nonsense and the issue of whether Social Security and Medicare would be cut or otherwise changed. “Oy vey!” she said, “They’re going to rob us of our pensions!” She said it in that Jewish grandmother caricaturish voice that Jon Stewart sometimes mimics on his Daily Show television program.
I don’t know if the Hebrew word hôy is the origin of the Yiddish expression, “Oy vey!” But when I read this passage today, my friend’s comment and her tone of voice came immediately to mind. Think of Jon Stewart’s caricature, think of the cartoon character Zoidberg on Futurama, think of the character Howard Wolowitz’s never-seen mother on The Big Bang Theory, think of Judd Hirsch’s portrayal of Jeff Goldblum’s father in the movie Independence Day. Read Isaiah’s words in that tone of voice . . . a tone of exasperated disappointment, of deeply negative resignation, of an anger that can only be uttered in sorrow.
Last Friday the terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place and in my sermon on Sunday (posted elsewhere on this blog) I said that I’d had a vision of unwrapped Christmas presents sitting under unlighted Christmas trees in darkened rooms. Today, similarly, I have a vision of the lonely elderly, the widowed sitting alone beside ancient menorahs or in rooms with a few tattered Christmas decorations. I know they are out there; I’ve visited them, as I know my colleagues in ordained ministry have all done. As Advent comes to a close this week and we put up our Christmas decorations (if they are not already up) and make our final preparations for Christmas, Isaiah’s prophecy reminds us of the plight of the elderly poor. They have been around a long long time . . . and so, apparently, have the political leaders “who make iniquitous decrees [and] write oppressive statutes.”
This Advent, this Christmas, and in the coming year . . . perhaps we should do more than simply utter exclamations of exasperated disappointment.
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
I absolutely adore Handel’s Messiah. As a child in a non-church-going family (except during the summers when I lived with my Methodist grandparents), my introduction to these words from the Prophet Isaiah was through Handel’s music. My step-father, who had sung in high school choirs, would take me with him to community sing-alongs of the oratorio which churches in our area would offer during the Christmas holidays. Even now as I read these lines from Isaiah, I read them to music of Handel! 
Did you pay attention to the words of the song we just sang as our sequence hymn? Listen to them again:
Today is the Third Sunday of Advent; in the tradition of the church it is known as Gaudete Sunday, Latin for “Rejoicing Sunday” so named because of the medieval introit to the Mass, “Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete”, St. Paul’s words in the Letter to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say rejoice.” (4:4) (A reading from that very portion of Paul’s letter is this year’s epistle lesson for the Eucharist today; we will hear and consider those words at church this morning.)
“This election is the most important, ever. If that candidate is elected, it will be the end of the world!” The first time I heard that was during the campaign of the first presidential election I paid attention to: the race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. I heard it as my family watched the televised debate; it was said by my older brother who was then a freshman studying history and political science at the University of Texas, so of course he knew everything. “That candidate,” by the way, was Richard Nixon. We heard it again in 1964; remember the television commercial with the little girl plucking petals from a daisy and the atomic explosion? “If Barry Goldwater is elected,” it suggested none too subtly, “it will be the end of the world.” We hear it every election, “This election is the most important election of our lifetimes.” And, to be honest, that is a correct statement. Those in the past are no longer important; they’re done and other with. Only this election can impact the future so, at this time, up to now, it is the most important. But truth be told . . . none of them, including this election, are really all that important in the grand scheme of things.
This passage is one of my favorites in the book of the prophet Hosea. (I’m a fan of that prophet for a number of reasons and this little-remarked verse is one them.) Hosea’s major metaphor for the relationship of God with Israel is that of marriage. Hosea portrayed God as Israel’s “husband” and condemend the nation because of the “adulterous” relationship it had had with other gods. As a “prophetic act” Hosea married a prostitute named Gomer, with whom his relationship parallels that of God with Israel. He tells of Gomer running away from him and having sex with another man, but he loves her and forgives her. Similarly, even though the people of Israel worshiped other gods, Hosea prophesied that Yahweh continues to love his people and does not abandon the covenant with them. This verse, however, departs from that metaphor and presents, instead, a maternal and feminine image of God.
If you are a political junkie like me, you’ve been following the campaigns, watching the conventions, reading the editorials, and generally getting angry with one side or the other or both and the whole process. You may have noticed, as I have, that candidates are never alone. They are surrounded by a whole corps, an entire gaggle of handlers, some of whom have the responsibility to make sure the candidate stays “on message”, that he or she makes no “gaffs”. Jesus was surrounded by a gaggle, as well, but these were not handlers and there was no one to keep him “on message” except himself. In fact, the gospel witness is pretty clear that even right up to the end the gaggle that followed him around really didn’t understand the message!
