Isaiah’s Gifts

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Confirmation, courage, David, God, Isaiah, knowledge, Messiah, O Come O Come Emanuel, reverence, right judgment, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding, wisdom, wonder and awe in God's presence

The Book of Isaiah is full of prophecies that chronicle events predicted for the life and salvation of the Hebrew people. They are not easily understood without a commentary as Isaiah often uses images like those in today’s lectionary where he says that “a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse…” which is interpreted as a recognition that the Messiah would be descended from royalty (the family of Jesse, father of David). But Isaiah was writing about a time when the fortunes of the house of David would be at their worst, thus the reference to the “stump of Jesse.” An interesting point of the commentary was that of the “shoot” as different from simply speaking of growth out of the stump as a branch. A shoot, notes the commentator, would be slender and insignificant, in contrast to the girth of the stump, thus indicating that the fruit would come from one person at a time of humiliation and obscurity. Thus, the surprise of a Messiah like Jesus.

One could spend a lifetime studying the Book of Isaiah. Even those of us whose knowledge of the text is sketchy at best recognize images or snippets that appear in other places, as the most familiar Advent hymn – O Come, O Come Emmanuel – reminds us with its titles for the long-awaited Messiah. Additionally anyone who was ever prepared for the sacrament of Confirmation in Christianity has probably memorized the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, taken directly from today’s first reading of chapter 11 of Isaiah. I learned them in sixth grade and was happy as an adult catechist to teach a slight change in translation that made me better understand such “gifts” when fear of the Lord morphed into wonder and awe in God’s presence. I was also glad to know and teach that it was a lifelong living into my faith that matured  those gifts in me rather than a direct transmission expected immediately at the age of 12. If that had been true, I reasoned, I had definitely failed!

Here’s the list. See what you can claim at this point in your growing faith: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, right judgment, courage, reverence and wonder and awe in God’s presence. (Isaiah 11:1-2) Don’t forget that we’re all still growing!

 

 

 

 

 

For Young and Old Alike

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awe, beauty, fear of the Lord, majesty, psalm 111, religious education, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Timothy, wisdom, wonder, youth

When I was teaching high school and, later, working in religious education with teenagers, I always referred them to the first letter of Timothy, a young disciple of Paul, specifically to the line that said, “Never let people look down on you because you are young, but see that they look up to you because of your love and faith and purity.” This morning I find that line (1TIM 4:12) – although translated a bit differently as “Let no one have contempt for your youth…” – as a call to all of us who are older to give more than a passing glance to young people whose journey to adulthood has likely been much more complicated than mine and to seek the good that may sometimes be hidden in them.

Another of my memories from those days of parish religious education was the shift in translation of the “seven gifts of the Holy Spirit” taught as they prepared for the sacrament of Confirmation. Most welcome was the change from “fear of the Lord” to “wonder and awe in God’s presence.” That made so much sense to me. I believe that the sense of that gift was always “God is so big and I am so small” but rather than conveying a duty to cower in the face of that huge presence, we are called to bow in wonder to the majesty and beauty of God. Perhaps that awe is most easily seen in small children for whom almost everything is a cause for wonder.

Lest you think I am lost in a reverie of by-gone teaching days, I was drawn to think of all this in connection as I read Psalm 111 today, which says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This reminds me that I need to nurture that sense of wonder and awe in young people, listen to them for growing insights about the workings of God in the world and find wisdom where it is birthed in them. We generally hear that wisdom is a virtue not characteristic of the young. While it is true that experience is the best teacher of wisdom, I would advocate for attention to what they can teach us older folks of newness and fresh perspective, and pray for them as they will be the ones to change the world.