Webinar is available at chedmyers.org but here are some snippets…

There is a “trialectic” biblical narrative concerning God’s relationship with human beings in the bible.

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Jesus embraces all three characteristics: loving both national enemies and intimate betrayers, calling disciples and living among the marginalised.

Isaiah I (Ch. 1-39) Isaiah II (Ch. 40-55) Isaiah III (Ch. 56-66) – different authors.

(p.96-97) But third Isaiah goes on to address specifically those parts of the community that are being legally and socially targeted:

Let not the foreigners say…
Let not the eunuch say…
For this is what God says… (Isaiah 56:3f)

This verse seeks to animate the voices of those who have internalized their rejection by the dominant culture because of how they are perceived and publically caricatured.  “The LORD will surely separate me from his people,” says the inner voice of the foreigner; “I am just a dry tree,” intones the introjected contempt of the eunuch.  Second-class citizens in our own history know all too well this self-hatred.  Black children have tried to scrub their skin white, immigrants have changed their names, women have kept silent, and gays and lesbians have stayed deep in a destructive closet – all to avoid the contempt of a society that barely tolerates them.  Internalised self-negation and external oppression are like a constant  “acid rain”, as psychologist William Grier and Price Cobbs famously put it in their landmark study Black Rage (1968). It is time, says Third Isaiah, for such dehumanisation to stop – because YHWH says otherwise.

What does this mean as a visitor, first-, second-, third-generation Australian?
Reflect on Australian immigration policy and response to “boat people”.
“Reconciliation” with indigenous First People  of these Nations.
Not only called to like pretty/smart/?/people, or people like “us” but specifically to welcome the hungry, the stranger, the ill…
Reflect on this: the maker of the outside also made the inside.

What credit it is it to you to only love those who are like you, to only love those who love you back, to only lend to those from whom you expect repayment – we are called to and Jesus role-modelled generous discipleship.

* I have purchased a copy of this book!