December 9, 2007
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 11:1-10
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Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19
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Romans 15:4-13
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Matthew 3:1-12
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson
What a roller coaster of readings this morning. An emotional ride of seeming contractions - threat and peace. The Isaiah reading for Advent 1 looked forward to a time when Zion would be made the highest of all mountains, to which the nations would come for instruction in the Way of God, the reign of peace initiated by coming root of Jesse will transform the entire created order. Not only will nations cease from warfare, but even natural enemies, predators and prey, will not hurt or destroy. In some of the most quoted lines from scripture, the prophet foresees that “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” Cows and bears, lions and oxen, snakes and human children will coexist without injury or harm. It is the fullness of Peace—the Harmony of harmonies, reconciling intensities in mutual richness of life. There there will be shalom, wholeness, completeness, shared well-being, in the broadest biblical sense of the term. All this will happen because the earth—not just the human population, but the entire world-fabric itself—“will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
The vision serves as a kind of transcendental, an completion of the coordinated ideal aims of God for creation, a dream where all actual societies can strive to embody in the greatest degree of Gods’ aim possible to them. Of course we have not seen that yet—no human community and no ecosystem—has shown this. It may be that we cannot achieve the fullness of Peace under the conditions of this world. The competing interests of our world conspire against our achieving this peace. Yet this dream, this vision serves as an ideal against which any and all actual societies can be measured.
Our psalm echoes this theme of a peaceful king whose reign will bring prosperity and righteousness, both to people and to nature, and who will live and reign forever. We see in our story, our narrative that this earthly king is found in the ministry of Jesus. And if Jesus is the one who testifies to our character we know then Christians are actively involved in the emergence of the reign of Peace, to defend the poor, deliver the needy, and sustain the earth.
Then just when we seem to have our marching orders, the roller coaster comes sliding down and we have the story of John the Baptist. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Matthew does not make us comfortable with John’s words.
Matthew presents John’s teaching as one uninterrupted flow from the warning to the “brood of vipers” straight through to the gathering of the wheat and burning of the chaff with “unquenchable fire.” The effect of this Matthew editing is to make John a much more imposing figure of an apocalyptic preacher, whose call to repentance is offered as an urgent last chance to escape the coming wrath. The options John gives his hearers reduce to a bare opposition between being “trees” that bear good fruit of repentance, or being “trees” that are cut down and thrown with the chaff into unquenchable fire.
Such teaching of fear might motivate for time but it does not sustain us. So Matthew also suggests there is a better option than wrath and fear. This option is still to come. He is setting up his story so when we encounter Jesus we have urgency but without the wrath. Over against John the Baptist we see the contrast with the teachings of Jesus who picks up the dream of God as one invitation and persuasion, calling the best out of those who listen.
Matthew has the listener waiting for a further sign of the promise of the peaceful kingdom. In the times of change we can lose hope, get pessimistic or we can dream the dream of God, which is built on the hope for peace.
Like any good story teller he leaves John the Baptist’s teaching incomplete. He wants to show that only Jesus brings the full message of repentance and inclusion in the Reign of God. He is creating in us a sense of waiting, as sense of looking beyond the immediate reality to a fuller sense of our life lived in harmony with all of creation. He teases us with the promise and in one sense we should stop here in this moment. This what advent asks us to do. We know the times are achanging but let us not rush into the change. The narrative invites us to rest and stop for a moment - living with anticipation not rushing to the end of the story. The narrative invites us into the mode of reflective hope - a hope for peace not yet here with the knowledge it is coming.
True there is an urgency here - time to get with the project Matthew is saying to his community. He says “we have all heard the words of Isaiah and the prophets about the role of humans in carrying out the project of healing the earth and bringing peace.” You can almost hear him say - “get with the project, time is running out.” “What are you waiting for?”
How do we hear this today as we move towards Christmas. Can we practice patience - a time of preparation so we can be those who live the dream?
This is to live in times are achanging with the sense we are grounded in a God of steadfastness and encouragement. It is to learn to let go of control and our agenda that we can fix things, and then discover our fixing has brought new problems and issues. In such a reality we can lose hope, become disquieted and withdraw when we discover such harmony has not come as the result of political or religious effort. It is a time to be those who open space so the spirit of God can continue to slide into our reality. It is to have the sense that peace is the working of the Holy Spirit. This is to know that the Spirit of God works through us. That our preparation is the preparation for our living of peace. Yes political and religious and interpersonal effort is required. This comes when the people cooperate with the Spirit’s gift—after all, “steadfastness” and “encouragement” are not ends but means.
Our waiting is to give us energy to work for the dream of God. For waiting is to welcome the Spirit of God into our lives. It is to sort out the important from the transitory, the crucial from the provisional. By waiting, by anticipation we learn to welcome.
Paul calls the people to real work, to “welcome one another.” The end of this welcome is a call where “may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is to be grounded in the love of God.
This certainly means joining together in prayer and worship; but it also means to “glorify” God in action for justice and peace in the wider world. The passage suggests the same kind of relationship between worship and action expressed by William Temple in his aphorism, “The proper relation between prayer and conduct is not that conduct is supremely important and prayer helps it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct tests it.” If unity in Christ begins and ends in prayer and worship, it lives “in the meantime” in conduct and action.
This applies both to living in harmony within the Christian community, and to life in the wider society; “Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (vss Romans 17-18). The unity within in Christ and thus within the church is therefore to be taken as a template for our project.
We are called to the vision of peace within the wider human communities. Such a vision of human community is beyond our grasp yet it continues to function as a lure to our efforts to embody God’s dream in actual societies - as much as we can. The power of that aim gives us power to live the dream in times that are achanging..
Thanks to Paul Nancarrow
George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com
