Third Song of the Servant of Jawe
Isaiah 50:4-9

Kirkridge Retreat, September 2007 Dan Berrigan

The 'teachability' of the servant fits her for vocation. She is disciple, listener, attentive to the voice of Another. And therefore, and in that act and attitude, apt for being the instrument of truth and salvation for others.

The connection is of the essence. The beat goes on.

Pain enters the scene, and persecution and setback;(a theme to be explored ingreat detail in the fourth song.) There is no smooth sailing for the servant of truth. The message is troublesome to worldly arrangements. 'Things as they are' has hardened into a dogma, i.e., "dogma/a pharoah, you will always draw water and hew wood and make blocks...No Moses!", ('equated with things as they should be, or must be' ) --rather than a debatable moral, economic, political arrangement, quite justly subject to scrutiny, recall, suppression even.

The message dares to stir (apparently) calm waters; therefore the medium is in trouble.

It should be recalled that the troublesome character of God's word inevitably revolves around matters of justice. There is however no 'troublesome matter' if the content of the word is restricted to God. Bod is acceptable to all, most of all, one thinks, to the unjust. The Latin oligarchies, we are told, are 'gone' on God.

(we haven't finished typing the text yet....thanks)