Fairly recently, I wrote about the impact of biblical prophecy on an inclusive church. This time, I want to narrow my focus slightly. I’ll dive into one of the Songs of the Suffering Servant in the Book of Isaiah, to illustrate how it influences our fervent desire for a church that includes all people. In what follows, I’ll examine Isaiah 49:1-7 in the NRSV.

Let’s start with a little context. There are four songs of a “Suffering Servant” in Isaiah 40-55, the part of the prophetic text called “Second Isaiah”: they’re in Isaiah 42:1–4, 49:1–6, 50:4–11, and 52:13–53:12. Taken together, these four dense passages talk about a person who is both in intense communion with God, and humiliated or reviled by others for their devotion to God’s healing presence and sacrificial love. We might ask who this person was, and how they relate to God’s compassionate mission in the world; scholars have several opinions! Magisterial Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann contends that the identity of God’s servant isn’t totally relevant; rather, he identifies the Servant as someone invested in the wellbeing of the people of Israel, and observes that God has tasked this person with “healing and emancipation in the world.” In a different way, Old Testament and disability studies scholar Jeremy Schipper argues that the Servant identified in Isaiah 53 is, in fact, a person with disabilities! Finally, Biblical scholar F. Duane Lindsey points out that the Servant’s mission from chapter 42 is expanded to a wider world in chapter 49. No matter who the Suffering Servant is, they are certainly someone who seeks to do God’s will earnestly, and in engagement with God’s people.

In light of the Servant’s ambiguous identity and vivid, clear mission, the text we’re looking at in this moment exists in three connected parts. First, in 49:1-4, the Servant meditates on the Divine mission given to them. The Servant calls the “coastlands” and “peoples from far away” to heed their cry (vv. 1-2, NRSV). The speaker observes that God gave them a mouth “like a sharp sword,” and that their skills resemble “a polished arrow” hidden in a quiver (verse 2). God explicitly identifies the Servant with Israel, “in whom [He] will be glorified” (49:3). Even so, the Servant mourns, “I have laboured in vain, I have poured out my strength for nothing and vanity.” In their grief, the speaker still feels reassured that God will reward their work: “My cause is with my God” (49:4, NRSV).

Furthermore, in verses 5-6, God very explicitly sends the Servant to do God’s transformative will. The Servant’s mission is to act “as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6). The Suffering Servant recognizes the gravity of the Divine charge they have received because God has called them in the womb, clearly demands that the Servant turn Israel back to YHWH, and gives the Servant great honour. This stanza of the Suffering Servant song in chapter 49 is also notable because it refers unambiguously to “the survivors of Israel” (verse 6). The Servant’s mission is not to a comfortable people, but to an embattled and exiled group.

Finally, in verse 7, the LORD speaks to reaffirm the Servant’s mission: “because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you,” the Servant will draw the attention of kings, princes, and other earthly rulers. One could relate this powerful description of vocation to Jeremiah 1, where the LORD asks Jeremiah to be his prophet to a similarly wide group of people (Jeremiah 1:4-10), or to Isaiah’s own commission, where he hears seraphs singing and mourns his own impurity (6, esp. 6:5). We can infer that when God calls someone, God calls them to act unreservedly as His agent.

In that light, we might ask what the text means for an inclusive Church. How does the Suffering Servant forecast what Brueggemann calls “healing and emancipation” for people with disabilities? While there are multiple avenues into God’s redemptive work here, I’ll point out three, going through each stanza anew. 

First, we’ve already seen that the Servant, compared to a “polished arrow” and with a mouth like a “sharp sword,” laments that their work is meaningless. Both of those things are true of people with disabilities: in many cases, we are the sharp, jagged implements, and sometimes weapons, which interrupt the inexorable, insufferable machinery of ableism. Our protests and self-advocacy have been making our embodied differences visible for decades. Even as we protest ableist structures, we lament the relative insignificance of our resistance. For instance, the cutting of SNAP benefits in the United States poses a threat to the lives, and livelihoods, of many worshippers of varied abilities. Even in Canada, the much-heralded Canada Disability Benefit allows us only $200 a month—not enough to allow us to flourish! Despite progress in the last few decades, people with disabilities have much to lament.

Furthermore, we who have disabilities may not have been called in the womb, like the Suffering Servant (49:5), but wherever we are, we are certainly asked to be “a light to the nations.” Because of what the late great Nancy Eiesland called the “kinesis of knowledge” – our different mode of knowing things, brought about by the diverse ways we move in the world – believers with disabilities shine a light on ableist programs and practices. We demand to be served Communion with other folks, no matter how inefficient that part of the liturgy might become. We make lots of noise in the back of the sanctuary, especially when things are going on that we don’t understand. We ask to be given equal, albeit not identical, opportunities for leadership and vocation with people of able body. Because of our ambiguous bodies, we illuminate the ways that the Church can change.

Finally, like the Suffering Servant, believers with disabilities have a specific Divine vocation. The Lord, who is faithful (Isaiah 49:7, NRSV), has chosen us to testify to the good news of inclusion in the wider world. Indeed, if Jeremy Schipper is correct about the Suffering Servant, and if Nancy Eiesland’s similar argument about Jesus Christ is also sound, then God himself identifies with the pain and exclusion of disability and works to remedy it through his grace. God wants to address the needs of people with disabilities, and will not bar us from the joy and fulfillment consonant with His coming Reign.

In the last couple pages, I’ve investigated a few different ways that Isaiah 49:1-7 helps believers of diverse abilities to work for an inclusive church. I’ve examined some of the passage’s context and asked after the Suffering Servant’s identity. I’ve also looked at each stanza of the passage in turn, and divined from each some simple ways that people with disabilities are called to take on part of God’s transformative work. Even if God’s plan isn’t clear to us, and even though the pathway we follow will involve suffering, we who have disabilities can still witness to the welcome and love that God has in store for all things.