Baby Talk in the Place of Exile

"Indeed, He will speak to this people
Through stammering lips and a foreign tongue. . .
So the word of the Lord to them wil be,
'Order on order, order on order,
Line on line, line on line,
A little here, a little there.'"

- Isaiah 28.11, 13

First off: that's not an ideal teaching technique. You don't use it for advanced pupils and one who remained in this phase of instruction would be truly remedial.

I mention that because John McArthur and his legion of followers actually brag that the famous pastor's teaching follows this pattern. It is true that just a couple of verses earlier the tenured religious class of Israel scoffs at Isaiah's "Judgment 101" in the same terms when they do, in fact, require this kind of special needs instruction. But the point is that they shouldn't.

There's some marvelous stuff going on here in the Hebrew that would make the point much clearer. Eugene Peterson gets the wordplay exactly right in The Message when he translates,

"So God will start over with the simple basics
and address them in baby talk, one syllable at a time -
'Da, da, da, da,
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's a good little girl,
that's a good little boy.'"

I don't know that MacArthur's Minions would feel quite so darned scholarly if their guru admitted that he sees himself a a sort of Religious Right Mr. Rogers cooing to a studio audience of biblical dimwits. What Isaiah really says is that because Israel refuses to hear the lyrical, poetic words of warning from one of God's mightiest and most eloquent prophets, the Lord will indeed relegate them to the "Hooked on Pentateuch" version of revelation. They will, YHWH promises, find themselves scattered from Hell to Persia, hunched in foreign cities studying Assyrian via Rosetta Stone, mindlessly mumbling the ABC's of their conqueror's lingua franca and trying to parse out, amidst all the suffering, what God says to them in this harsh new language of exile. As the Book of Ruth testifies, they eventually became adept and heard their Lord speak rich words of love in the lingo of judgment.

Anyway, the passage is on my mind because of my recent endeavors as a short-term missionary working with Muslim Burmese exiles who spoke almost no English. We spent the bulk of our time teaching them English as a Second Language, which does in fact consist of, "Da, da, da, da. Blah, blah, blah, blah." At least, I imagine that's what it sounded like to them as I intoned over and over again, "Hello. How are you? I am fine," and discussed the finer points of the ABC's. These were intelligent, literate people who no doubt had considerable standing in their own country, and sophisticated abilities with their own subtle and complex language. Yet because of exile, of military coup and political upheaval, they found themselves shipped to a foreign land where people dress funny and eat strange food and jabber in syllables that bleat "da da da da" and practically pat them on the head when they master some simple phrase.

So the question becomes, What is God saying to the Burmese in nursery-room English? What is the word of the Lord according to the Book of Exile?

And the frustrating thing is that, for the most part, I don't know. Because I only had four days and I never got beyond "See Spot run." I suppose I could at least have tried "Jesus" on 'em, but they know that name and politely refuse to hear it. The whole thing leaves me wondering if my colleagues and I did any good. Beyond meeting some wonderful people and learning a little about their customs, did we manage even the most basic introduction into the Kindergarten of the Kingdom?

Well, this is what I believe: NOT that God exiled these particular people from their country because of their own particular sins; indeed, these are the nobodies, the ones always more sinned against than sinning when war's hot blast blows in a nation's ears. But I do believe that God is speaking to them, and that the broken heart he retains from the hard classroom where he instructed his own beloved people continues to make him highly skilled in the teaching of Exile as a Second Language. I believe God has a word for Hchit Maung and Si-da-bay and Wha-Wha-Laing and Mamya and the rest of those who had to humble themselves to hear first-grade English from an untrained teacher, and that their entire ordeal is not a means of hearing that word but is, already, that word itself. And I believe that that word is "love". And one day when, before the throne of our Father, they pour out God's praise with an eloquence that surpasses Shakespeare, I will perhaps punch the angel next to me on the shoulder and say, "That's one of my pupils. Taught him his ABC's."

The crowds who heard Jesus hungered for his teaching because he spoke in image and story, eschewing the da-da-da-da of the seminary professors of his day. (Mt 7.28-29) Yet Jesus' words were never "sophisticated" and always invited the simple understanding of a child. And in one of his most arresting images, Jesus had a word for ESL evangelists like me and my friends in Fort Wayne last week:

"And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." (Mt 10.42) And what is a disciple's reward? To become like his teacher (Mt 10.25), and to make other disciples (Mt 28.18-20). And that's the permanent reward I'm claiming from my temporary teaching.