This is peace?

Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Most of us are not ready for Christmas, right?

The advent, the coming of the baby Jesus, and all his attendant celebrations and feasts, seems to be coming up pretty quick (except for children, who’re waiting rather for Santa and that wait seems like an eternity!)

The advent, the coming of peace, however, that seems like an eternity….if not an impossibility.  It’s a loooong gap between what is and what will be.    Going back to Isaiah’s vision of God’s new reign, God’s kin-dom is about 2500 years, and we’re still waiting. Perhaps that’s the problem, we’re waiting.  Just waiting.

A shoot shall come out from a dead stump—a great metaphor:  it’s fragile, small, something growing where nothing should, where loss or despair or grief or hurt deaden life.   What’s deadening you, or your family, or the church or the nation?

Waiting for something else to happen or someone else to fix it isn’t going to bring about peace for us….we must tend the seedling tenderly, wherever it is, wherever peace needs to break through our war-hardened hearts.   Then A shoot shall come out

A shoot shall come out it’s a definite verb, it’s a promise from God….but this prophetic promise seems so ludicrous, the vision so impossible, we’ve relegated it to artwork and Christmas cards…..I think it was Woodie Allen who said that the wolf might down with the lamb but the lamb won’t get much sleep!

But ANYTIME hospitality replaces hostility, anytime grace overcomes greed, anytime the power of love is stronger than the love of power, as Ghandi said, then the predator and prey lie down together, and A shoot comes out

The world lost a great peace-maker this week.   Nelson Mandela lived this vision, and worked for it even while he was waiting imprisoned on Robben Island…..and A shoot has come out and transformed a nation.

Do we not believe in a God who takes the ordinary and makes the miraculous?  So we must also believe the impossible and work to make it happen.

Then there’s this John the Baptizer character, another prophet who comes with a word of judgment, a word that exposes just how dead the stump of people’s faith was, a word that especially exposes the falsity of the respectable mainline religion.

First he speaks to everyone who’s come seeking a word for their lives, and the word they get is “Repent!”

Now most often we hear that word as guilt-making, highlighting our failures to measure up, and at this time of year we might hear it as scolding for not doing Advent “properly”.   But really, repentance is about “a reorientation, a change of perspective and direction, a commitment to turn and live differently.” (Working Preacher)

So at advent, this advent, it’s an invitation to dream a larger hope, a bigger vision, and to work towards it intentionally and actively.

Let’s give this some concrete meaning…..make a quick to-do list—or get yours out if you already have one – there are pencils and paper in most of the pews, or you can scribble on your bulletin…..I promise, no judgment.  Maybe it’s shopping for kids, or attending a school concert, or the womens communion service or deciding on which Christmas eve service to go to….make it as exhaustive a list as you can….

Now, daydream about what you hope Christmas will be like.  What kind of day you hope it will be, what relationships you want to be part of, what kind of worship experience, what kind of world do you hope for this Christmas and beyond, name your longings, and like Isaiah and God, dream big

…..distill that into one sentence and write it down somewhere if you can; if not just think about it.

Now, work backwards.  Go to the to-do list and circle tasks that contribute to your larger hopes and dreams and longings………some things may seem important in the short run, but may not contribute to your deepest hope

Repentance may be a joyful reoriention of the lists……one of our Benedictine practicers said on Friday she doesn’t do anything that doesn’t bring joy, either to herself or to others….that’s advent repentance!   I know myself that as we’ve done things differently over the years, often involving doing LESS, our family has experienced MORE….more hope, more peace, more enjoyment.

Then John goes on to address the faithful people of the established national religion…..his word to them, and to us, is “bear fruit”-your being religious, or for us doing church, means nothing if lives aren’t changed, if hope isn’t alive and peace at work, and people are offered new access to the living kin-dom of God.

Practice hope, practice peace, and A shoot shall come out

And he goes on to confront us, don’t be resting on your past traditions—it doesn’t much matter if you call yourselves Christians or Methodists or evangelicals or whatever….God doesn’t need religious folk.  If God did they could be created out of nothing—the impossible is possible with the God what takes the ordinary and makes the miraculous.  

This is why the ax is at the foot of the tree; we are on the brink of losing God’s improbable vision – and the final blow might just be wielded by institutional religion that clings to the past and won’t lift a finger, or a voice, for the global vision of God’s “peaceable kingdom”.

This advent we can look back all we want at ancient visions, and prepare all we want for the celebration of a historical event, OR we can look forward to the God who is always coming, always drawing us from the future, inviting us to join in bringing about the unprecedented kin-dom of God.   Then A shoot shall come out and be tended by our attitudes of hope, our acts of non-violence, our work and words for peace.

May it be so.  Amen.