The Reflectionary

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

This week’s passage contains the famous image of sins like scarlet becoming white like wool. As a paid-up member of Yarnaholics Anonymous, anything featuring wool is good in my eyes.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.

We might miss the strength of some of these metaphors, though, because we live in a world of automatic washer-dryers and colour-fast clothing. (Although we’ve all done that thing with the one red sock. Am I right or am I right?) 

In Isaiah’s first chapter, God tells his people to wash themselves clean from their sins: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil. This might sound like we have to do good things and then God will like us. Salvation by works? Nope. The clue is a couple of verses later – those sins we’re supposed to remove by washing, they’re scarlet! Dum dum Duuuum! “So what?” we say. “What’s the big deal about scarlet?” 

The big deal about scarlet is that we can’t wash it out. God needs to do this for us.

Before the invention of aniline dyes in the 1850s, most dyes were plant-based and were not colour-fast. They washed out. They faded in the sun. Wearing any colour other than muddy cream/green/brown was difficult and expensive.  (Fun fact 1: the world’s first synthetic dye, a vibrant permanent mauve, was created by accident by an 18-year old student working in his home laboratory who was trying to synthesise quinine.)

Scarlet was a notable exception. It was part of the ‘Tyrian Purple’ range of dyes, used by the ancient Phoenicians possibly in the 1500s BC. (Fun fact 2: Phoenicia means ‘land of purple’.) Made from snail gunge and HUGELY expensive, it came in a range of shades from deep plum to nose-bleed red and, most importantly, it did not fade but became brighter with sunlight.

So, sins like scarlet – that’s a big, big deal. No amount of washing, soaking, scrubbing or bleaching would get that out. Not even the drain-unblocker-type soaps that they used back then.

Good News – God can, and will, and does. And all we have to do is ask. Thanks be to God!

Here are links to other posts about related passages.

The post is about the second part of this chapter (unhelpfully skipped over by the lectionary) but the themes are the same. It has exegesis first then a selection of age-differentiated children’s activities.

This post is about another passage in Isaiah where the launderer’s soap is not soft and gentle fairy liquid!

Have fun folks, I’m taking a couple of weeks off to enjoy summer with my kids.

Oh yes, and some oven-hot news. I’m delighted to tell you that I’ve been recommended for training as an ordained minister in the Church of England! Woo hoo! I start back at uni (yet again) in September and, assuming I don’t mess it up completely, will be ordained in a couple of years at Peterborough Cathedral. I expect you all to be there. 🙂