a communal, embodied, and whole-making endeavour
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. Isaiah 58:9-10
The call to follow Jesus - through the great darkness that rolls in with each News headline and, perhaps more insidiously, that we find rooted in our own lives and actions - is a hard one.
And we lose our way when we do not hear within the divine directive to love God, the equal and inseparable requirement to love our neighbour as ourselves. Jesus’ offer of ‘life in all its fullness’ is a direct challenge to the edges and borders we feel compelled to defend and that must be dismantled if we are all to be made whole.
Re-orientation
The trespassing Son of Man comes to re-orient us societally and culturally (as well as personally) towards dignity, forgiveness, generosity, justice, and sabbath rest; because shalom is a communal, embodied, and whole-making endeavour. There can be no personal or partial shalom. It requires participation from everyone in the community.
“The whole community must have shalom or no one has shalom […] Shalom is not for the many, while a few suffer; nor is it for the few while many suffer. It must be available for everyone. In this way, shalom is everyone’s concern.” Randy Woodley: Shalom and the Community of Creation
Shalom then, is neither a serene disposition nor hope situated in a better future. We are called by Jesus to set about the task of living out shalom now and making it our daily business. He calls us to follow him into the active and persistent effort of shalom at every level, from personal relationships to societal and structural transformation.
Questions
Who or what needs my forgiveness?
Who is not getting enough to eat, and how can I help?
Who can I free to rest?
Who needs me to stand with them?
Lynn Darke
Image credit: Swanson, John August. Festival of Lights, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56546 [retrieved February 25, 2026]. Original source: Estate of John August Swanson, https://www.johnaugustswanson.com/.