Is Peace Possible?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
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November 28, 2004
Advent 1 / Cycle A
Dear Fellow Preachers,
In Advent, "coming," we celebrate the coming of the Redeemer into history and also anticipate the ultimate consummation of all things. Advent draws us both to the past and to the future.
On this First Sunday in Advent, the question of war and peace still tragically dominates our daily news. Even after millennia of tragic evidence to the contrary, too many of us continue to assume that violence can lead to peace and justice. Some people see in the death of Yassir Arafat a possible opening for peace to take root in the Middle East. Others are more skeptical. But the event causes us to ask the question, "Is peace possible anywhere in the world?" So for this issue of The Immediate Word, we have asked team member Carter Shelley to write on the theme, "Is Peace Possible?" drawing especially on the classic words of the First Reading of the lectionary, Isaiah 2:1-5.
Other team members, as usual, offer comments, illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
Is Peace Possible?
Isaiah 2:2-5
Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
By Carter Shelley
Once again we come to the season of Advent. Once again we read Old Testament passages that provide visions of peace and justice with the children of Israel, the Temple, and Jerusalem all playing a key role. Once again we come together to worship, pray, anticipate, and rejoice in the coming of the Prince of Peace. Yet as we prepare ourselves for Christ's coming, do we even bother to ask, "Is Peace Possible?" We may pray for peace in the Sudan, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and between Israel and the PLO, but do we really think it is possible? Isaiah expresses faith in God's ability to accomplish all that God has ordained. Isaiah depicts God as the One to whom all nations will come seeking wisdom and direction. Psalm 122 rejoices at the opportunity to worship in the house of the Lord and "to pray for the peace of Jerusalem."
Both of this Sunday's New Testament readings emphasize active readiness. Matthew 24:36-44 stresses the importance of watchfulness lest one miss the day and hour of the Son of Man's return. Paul writes in Romans 13:11-14 of the importance of righteous behavior on the part of those awaiting God's salvation. None of these biblical authors writes of peace in some placid, peaceful afterlife. It is peace on this earth that they celebrate. It is God's rule established in Jerusalem, in this world, that they anticipate. Many, many people -- Christians, Muslims, and Jews among them -- assume that war is inevitable, that it is naive to think that humanity will ever truly turn our swords into plowshares or our smart bombs into airdropped CARE packages. Yet Isaiah's vision, Christ's instruction, and Paul's admonitions all call us to action. Is peace possible?
Introductory Remarks
It seems wholly appropriate this First Sunday in Advent to place before ourselves and our congregations the challenge of making worldwide peace a reality in the twenty-first century. Failure to do so could in fact lead to the annihilation of whole nations, if not all who live on earth. In the years just after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, many Christians warned of the dangers of using such technology in waging war. Their statements are no less relevant today, though they may be less well-known. In the last chapter of church historian Roland H. Bainton's book Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation, individuals as different as philosopher Bertrand Russell and Pope Pius XII and others challenge Christians to take action to wage a war against war.
In asking "Is Peace Possible?" I have chosen to focus on the Isaiah text. It is no accident that this prophetic oracle of salvation in Isaiah 2:2-5 and its near twin in Micah 4:1-4 proclaim God's will for peace nor that the Christ child soon to be born and celebrated by the angel chorus in Luke is known as the Prince of Peace. While God's will has often been associated with acts of violence -- the conquest of Canaan, the violence of the period of the Judges, David's defeat over Goliath and the Philistines, the medieval Crusades, and by both sides in World War I -- God's central acts of salvation have not been accomplished through military actions or wholesale bloodshed. Thus, this biblical text, which anticipates God's peaceful reign over all the nations of the earth, looks forward to a time when the divine will for peace will replace the human will for war.
Isaiah 2:2-5
In his commentary on Isaiah 1-14 Otto Kaiser discusses the similarities between this oracle of salvation and its near twin in Micah 4:1-4. Kaiser does not believe that Isaiah 2:2-5 was part of Isaiah of Jerusalem's original prophecies but a word inserted at a later time, when Judah's political situation and oppression seemed just as hopeless as it did at this time when the northern kingdom of Israel had collapsed and Judah's own future looked very bleak indeed.
This oracle anticipates a time when the God who acts in history -- to liberate slaves from Egypt, guide them in their conquests, and make them a great nation under David -- will again act to liberate God's chosen people and validate their devotion. The whole world will see that God is, and always has been, both Creator and Lord of all the earth. At this end time the entire world will recognize Jerusalem's unique role as a place of worship and law-giving. Kaiser notes, "The rule of God will be established through instruction and the word of God, the word of God in the Torah." Because war is understood to be a primary consequence of human sin, 2:2-5 expresses the expectation that those who truly know God will bring war to an end" (27). Thus, God's rule will end all discord.
Those who first heard this oracle and those of us who read and hear it today are called upon to live our lives based upon the hope that God's rule will prevail over human sinfulness and that we in our lives will work in concrete ways to obey God's will and help make peace. If a person is "seized by the reality of God, he [or she] realizes that he is called not to violence and suffering but to a peaceful and just life with other men, [and women] in which alone human life can be fulfilled" (30).
In The Message of the Prophets Gerhard Von Rad supplements Kaiser's insights:
A pilgrimage of the nations to the city of Mount Zion ... describes a peaceful event: its subject is the salvation of the nations, and not their judgment. In the older version in which we have it, Isaiah 2:2-4, the first stage in the eschatological event is a miraculous change in physical geography. At the end-time, the mountain of the house of Yahweh is to rise aloft and be exalted high above all the hills round about it, so that it will be visible to all the nations. These will immediately set out and stream to it from every side, because they can no longer endure the desperate condition in which they live. They therefore come as pilgrims to Yahweh, "for out of Zion goes forth instruction," just as the bands of Israel's pilgrims year by year made the journey to Zion where, at the climax of the festival, Yahweh's will as expressed in law was proclaimed to them, so the prophecy expects that "at the end of the days" the nations will present themselves on Zion for a final settlement of all disputes, and to receive those fixed rules for living by which Yahweh grants salvation, and that thereafter -- once they have returned home again -- they will reforge their weapons of war into implements of peace (260).
Theological Implications
God often gets associated with violent acts in the Old Testament, such as the conquest of Canaan in the book of Joshua, the victories of the various Judges in the book of that name, and the successes of Saul and David. But the two most significant acts of liberation that God initiates are the liberation of the Hebrew slaves from bondage in Egypt and the liberation of all who repent and seek God's forgiveness and love through Jesus' death, resurrection, and intercession on our behalf. These two central mighty acts of God begin with a lone infant: The first was spared from the Pharaoh's terrible edit to kill all male Hebrew children by clever women who hid baby Moses in the bulrushes. The second was born to a modest, virtually anonymous couple about whom we know almost nothing except they were faithful and responsive to God's plan and their son was born in a manger. Moses became the leader to bring God's people out of Egypt without the people themselves having to take up arms. Instead God sent plagues that ultimately persuaded Pharaoh to let God's people go!
God reverses the ways of the world. God's chosen people? Slaves in Egypt, not kings and queens and the aristocratic elite. God's Messiah? Not another warrior king like David but a babe born in a manger.
That's the kind of God Isaiah 2:2-5 sees at work. Meek, mild, insignificant Jerusalem -- a place of no significance to foreign empires in the eighth century -- will become the focal point and center of God's acts of salvation and unification. Thus, Isaiah 2:2-5 celebrates and vindicates the many centuries of steadfast devotion the people of God can claim while simultaneously broadening God's rule over all peoples and nations. Furthermore, it establishes that war, strife, division, hate, persecution, and the like are not the will of God and that God will judge human conduct and rule over a peaceful nation. God wills redemption from the sorrows and sins of life. Sorrows and sins will not continue after God fulfills God's promises. God is the God of all people. God wills peace, not war. God will judge and God will bless. No matter how bleak the present, in God there is hope.
Reversing the Ways of the Word
In medieval Europe there was an annual celebration called carnival. Literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin examined the writings of Rabelais and discovered that during this one festival the serfs, poor, and subjugated people of the community once a year enjoyed a holiday celebration in which a reversal of roles between themselves and their rulers was enacted dramatically. Through the use of costumes, plays, skits, and so on the beleaguered populace took on the roles of the lord of the manor, the knights, and kings. Because it was "controlled gaiety" and all participants knew the role reversals were temporary, the men in power positions tolerated the plays and skits that portrayed them as the underlings, serfs, servants, and such. Bakhtin identifies these carnival celebrations as subversive acts on the part of the people. The fact that they act out a reversal of the existing order, means they can imagine a time when that order will be reversed and they will be liberated from agonizing physical toil, scarce food, unreasonable tax burdens, and living virtually as slaves. They may not live the lives they play but they can dream of and envision a time when it will be different.
That same dynamic is at play in Isaiah 2:2-5. It's the last third of the eighth century B.C.E. Israel has already fallen and is in the process of becoming assimilated into the Assyrian Empire. Judah has squeaked by without becoming an occupied puppet state, but its economic back has been broken by a usurious tax burden. At this nadir in Judah's history, this oracle of salvation is offered to give them courage, hope, and an affirmation that ultimately God truly is on their side and will vindicate their trust in God.
Just as the medieval serfs knew they didn't have the resources or the opportunity to overthrow their kings, lords, and masters in order to work for themselves and be free, the citizens of Judah also recognized there was no way they alone could prevent the empire-building nations' violent conquest.
Their only hope is in God but oh, what a wonderful hope it is! Instead of their land being laid waste, their resources stolen, their political identity squashed, and their anointed king replaced with a puppet ruler -- not to mention the risk of loss of their religious identify and all they hold dear -- Isaiah 2:2-5 allows them to anticipate and rejoice in the future supremacy of their God. Their center Jerusalem will be the place to which all nations come to worship God, celebrate God's power and justice, and recognize the unique and honored place the children of Israel have played in it all by being God's faithful people. All nations will bow down before God, and God's children of Israel will hold a place of honor for having recognized and lived under this self-same God, having been blessed and becoming a blessing for other peoples and nations.
They won't achieve this amazing goal with physical strength, weapons, war, or other acts of violence. Quite the contrary, the vision of the world presented in this oracle of salvation is a world in which swords will be made into plowshares and all will have enough to eat and to live and rejoice in God's goodness. This reversal of their desperate present through God's salvific act in the future will not be based on bloodshed or which country is more powerful or has the more intimidating weapon. It all depends on God.
Theological Application
God's role in the Exodus; in Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection; and in Isaiah 2:2-5 all have significant implications: (1) There are other ways to make good things happen than by going to war. (2) God is creative in the way God transforms situations of human bondage, and we who seek to be God's servants can also be creative when we set our minds "to study war no more." We are called upon to put as much energy into peacemaking as currently gets put into war-making by so many others. (3) The impossible is possible. (4) It's up to us to take this question seriously and look at ways to say yes to it. (5) There are concrete examples of places it has worked: South Africa in ultimately resolving apartheid, the USSR, which fell due to bankrupting itself on military spending, India's liberation from Great Britain at the end of WWII. Moreover, with the death of Yassir Arafat, slight though it may be, there is an opportunity for both Israel and the Palestinians to compromise and give up some of what they want in terms of land and rights in order to establish peace for both peoples.
Contemporary Context
There is a moving statue in Moscow's Sculpture Garden of a man with the physique of Michelangelo's David or a younger Arnold Swartzenegger (see web link). The man is holding a hammer that looks like it would be used in beating iron into horseshoes or swords. The man has his right arm raised high behind his head at its farthest peek and one can imagine it slamming down on the sword held in his other hand. The sword rests on an anvil and is already partially reshaped into a plowshare with its center flattened out and curved so that its point can be used for plowing, not killing. It's an excellent visual portrayal of the words used in Isaiah. You can find and print a copy of it to use as a bulletin cover by going to: http://www.lindsayfincher.com/gallery/sculpture_garden_03/sg_sword_plows_lg
To ask the question "Is Peace Possible?" Is to stick one's neck out as a homiletician, since many will immediately dub one as naive, idealistic, unable to grasp the complexities of war, and so on. Peace is needed on many levels. War may be the most obvious and awful example, but there are many others as well that originate from similar flaws and perversions of human nature. Isaiah 2:2-5 with its vivid image of swords made into plowshares doesn't account for other kinds of violence we humans turn on each other such as child abuse, mental and emotional persecution, divorce, and so much more, but it certainly is an obvious place to start.
For those who might hear such a sermon as "not supporting our troops," it is legitimate to begin with a statement of affirmation as to one's personal recognition of what it means to live in the United States and to have the kind of freedoms that we enjoy. One might also acknowledge that few American citizens want our military to remain in Iraq or Afghanistan any longer than is absolutely necessary.
This week provides an opportunity to introduce your congregation to some of your church's statements and policies about peace. There are some excellent denominational resources one can use in asking the question "Is Peace Possible?" You may want to do an online search of your denomination's statements and actions in the area of peacemaking.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of war to choose from on November 28, 2004. The ongoing fight between the rebels and the Sudanese is one. Heartbreakingly, resolution of the war may have no affect on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Thus our prayers and political pressure on our political leaders and the UN need to continue. The American and British efforts to quell the insurgents in Iraq continue to provide challenges and complexities not imagined when war was first declared in March 2003. Arafat's demise may lead to peaceful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but so long as there are radicals who hate the thought of compromise, such efforts will continue to inspire further acts of terrorism and hatred.
If we want to be peacemakers we need to beware of the euphemisms we use to soften the realties of war. "Casualties" refer to deaths. "Peacekeepers" often refer to nuclear warheads. The term "liberation" frequently serves as a cover for what really takes place: control and domination.
Trying to explore whether peace is truly possible is an uphill battle (pun intended). To be a peacenik, a peace-nut, a peacemaker is to be at odds with the norms of American culture. There's a whole arm of the entertainment industry dedicated to war and violence -- cops and robbers, attorneys and convicted felons, murderers, and so on. It's big business. It may be Halliburton today who profits, but there were plenty of previous individuals and corporations who made a bundle on every war we have declared. It's also a national unifier. Nowhere near as many of us sacrifice, pray, give up our favorite foods, write letters to our senators and congressmen about poverty in American or children who lack healthcare, but we do put magnetic yellow ribbons on the back of our cars, display our country's flag, slap "Support our Troops" signs on our cars and think those who believe this war is wrong are unpatriotic, are against the troops, and are jerks. Can you imagine what life would be like in our nation if people put the same kind of energy, prayer, sacrifice, and zeal behind something humanitarian that was similar to the emotional, economic, and political support our nation provided during World War II?
It doesn't take a genius to know that violence appeals to many among us, not only as a way to protect one's rights but also as a form of entertainment. I did a quick brain check to see what movies I could recall that seem to celebrate violence as the one true way a man can prove his manhood. I put these movies into several categories:
1. The Peaceable Guy Kicks Butt: Gary Cooper in High Noon; Mel Gibson in The Patriot and Braveheart; Harrison Ford in Air Force One.
2. The Hero Who Makes the World Safe from Evil People: Kevin Costner in Robin Hood; Angelina Jolie in The Tomb Raider movies; Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Bronson each in turn as James Bond; Charlie's Angels.
3. The Conquering Hero: Alexander, starring Collin Farrell, just in time for Christmas!
4. Too Raw for Television Movies about War: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan; because its violence is too accurate a depiction of the landing at Normandy, it was blocked by some television stations while the scene most filmgoers found the most excruciating in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was the camera's unvarnished record of a mother's emotional anguish over the death of her soldier son in Iraq.
While it is essential for preachers to place before our congregations questions such as the one posed for this Sunday's The Immediate Word, it is equally important to lead the congregation in the study of peacemaking in a variety of ways that help to concretize the ways of peace and give ourselves an alternative to the ways of violence and war. Along with the study of such excellent books as Roland H. Bainton's Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace and Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, many denominations have their own curriculum, peacemaking statements, and so on.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: Is peace possible? My first reaction is, "It sure doesn't look like it." My second reaction is, "Well, if peace isn't possible we've sure been wasting a lot of time praying for it!" We fill our worship with it ("In peace let us pray to the Lord"), wish it for one another in the middle of the service ("Peace be with you"), and may conclude with a blessing of "The peace of God which passes all understanding...." A lot of that echoes the fundamental moment when the risen Lord appeared to his disciples and said "Peace be with you."
Even when the reality, and to some extent the necessity, of war is recognized in some situations, it is supposed to be subordinated to peace. One of the criteria of the traditional just war doctrine is the ultimate goal of war as a last resort is the establishment of peace.
But what kind of peace is meant? One British chieftain of the first century, looking around at the devastation that accompanied the Roman conquest of that island, said "They make a desert and call it peace." That commentary on the pax Romana could also be applied to a lot of other technically peaceful results of war, including some aspects of the pax Americana.
The biblical concept of shalom is much more comprehensive and profound than an absence of combat. It includes justice and genuine accord between people. Even more widely, shalom includes peace with the natural world and with non-human creatures. Biblical pictures of peace like those in Isaiah 11, with the wolf dwelling with the lamb, begin to bring out this full meaning.
But as someone has said, the wolf may lie down with the lamb but the lamb won't sleep very well! That picture suggests that we aren't just a few tweaks away from the shalom God desires, but that a radical transformation will be required. That is also suggested by our text in Isaiah 2, where the "mountain of the Lord's house," Mount Zion (which is actually pretty small potatoes as a mountain) will be the highest of all mountains. Even if that just means higher than Mount Hermon and doesn't take into account Everest, it requires a profound change in the world -- a physical image hinting at the spiritual and psychological change that would be required if genuine peace were to be established among the nations.
It would require also a transformation of the way we use our knowledge of the world and the technologies that it has given rise to. "They shall beat their swords into plowshares...." It's true that some advances in military technology have given rise to some peacetime benefits. But on balance the coming of real peace would release tremendous resources to improve the welfare of individuals and society. For a brief time a few years ago, with the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War, and the Oslo peace accords, it looked as if that might come to pass. But it was an opportunity that we (as a world, not just as Americans) failed to grasp.
Jesus is both realistic and challenging about issues of war and peace. He tells us that there will be "wars and rumors of wars," but his blessing in the Sermon on the Mount is given to the peacemakers. It is a challenge that is offered to each one of us. We pray that the leaders of the nations would be peacemakers, but the well-known prayer of Saint Francis reminds us that that role begins at an individual level. "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." Again it is a matter of transformation. Advent is, to some extent, a penitential season, but we ought to encourage not just repentance for this, that, or the other individual sin. It should be an opportunity for Christians to open themselves to be made instruments for God's peace, in preparation for the coming of the Prince of Peace.
Carlos Wilton responds: Today's Old Testament lesson dates from a time of terrible trial for Israel. The once-mighty nation, the empire of David and Solomon, has fallen upon very hard times. First it split in two, into the northern and southern kingdoms. Then it lost all its conquered territory. Now only the southern kingdom of Judah is left -- with a corrupt king, a devastated economy, and an army that's the laughingstock of all the mightier nations round about. The empire of Babylon is getting stronger by the day. Anyone with eyes to see is well aware that Judah's days are numbered.
The situation appears hopeless. And to add insult to injury, the prophet Isaiah is walking up and down the streets of Jerusalem, proclaiming to any who will listen how evil and sinful the people have become, and how God has a terrible punishment in store.
Not all of Isaiah's prophecies, though, are prophecies of doom. Every once in a while, the prophet's message changes key, from the minor to the major. As determined as Isaiah is to cultivate true repentance in Israel, he still offers the people some relief, poetically describing the glorious things God has planned for them in the very distant future.
Isaiah spins a tale about a mountain, a great mountain, higher than all the others. (His listeners would have realized, instantly, that he's talking about Mount Zion, the mount on which the city of Jerusalem is built.) To this mountain shall come streaming all the peoples of the earth. They shall come there to receive God's judgment -- and only after they are judged shall they -- in words that are among Isaiah's most famous --
beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
It's remarkable how timely those words continue to be. Two and a half millennia since Isaiah first spoke them, the human race is still awaiting the day when swords are transformed into plowshares.
Outside the United Nations building in New York is a plaque with these very words inscribed upon it. It was placed there soon after the UN was founded, from out of the ashes and rubble of World War II. And still warfare rages among the nations of the earth: Iraq being only the latest in a long string of armed conflicts. We of the human race aren't even close to fulfilling the prophet's dream of peace.
It's a beautiful dream, yes -- but in the vision of the prophet, it's also a reality that's becoming real even now. Prophetic dreams such as these are the first fruits of the rich harvest God will one day bring to all the faithful (and, through them, to all the peoples of the earth). Our anticipation for that day of fulfillment is intense. There are times when we wish the angels of heaven would swoop in and right the wrongs that are so obvious, and bring in God's kingdom of justice and peace.
Yet, as Jesus himself says, "No one knows the day or the hour." It's not for us to know. For us, there is only the waiting. Such waiting is the task of Advent.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton
The year is 1941, and Hitler's armies are on the march. The Nazi advance is heading with astonishing speed toward the city of Leningrad -- now called, once again, by its historic name, St. Petersburg.
Knowing the Nazis were on their way, and fearing what would happen if the city fell, the staff of the famous Hermitage Museum worked around the clock to pack up the priceless paintings and sculptures and move them to a place of safety. On July 1, the director of the museum stood weeping at the railroad station as three trains, loaded with the treasures of the Hermitage, prepared to leave for the Russian heartland. Not even the conductors knew the final, secret destination of those railway cars.
The third train never left. Hitler's forces had by then closed the circle around the city. Two and a half million people were trapped there, under appalling conditions of hunger and deprivation.
Knowing how important it was for the citizens of Leningrad to have some diversion, the museum staff kept their palatial building open to visitors. Only minor works remained on display, but the building itself was a work of art. Maybe as the beleaguered city-dwellers walked through its half-empty halls, gazing at so many empty frames, they might remember what once had been, and would be led to hope for its return.
The day came when even the Hermitage building itself came to be at risk. Bombs falling nearby shattered the windows. Heavy snows drifted in, soaking the once-elegant parquet floors. The museum staff enlisted Russian soldiers to shovel up the mixture of snow and glass, take it out bucket by bucket, and install new windows to protect the building.
There was no material way to thank the soldiers for what they'd done. But then a longtime Hermitage guide, by the name of Pavel Dubchevski, had an idea. He offered to give the soldiers a highly unusual museum tour.
Dubchevski led the hollow-eyed, starving men, clad in their ragged uniforms, through the cavernous halls of the museum. So many picture frames hung empty on the walls, but the guide paused at each one, describing to the soldiers the painting that used to hang there. Later, the soldiers would recall that Dubchevski's descriptions were so vivid and powerful that they almost felt they could see the world-famous art treasures.
Pavel Dubchevski, the Hermitage Museum guide, was filling a role that day very much like that of a prophet. He brought his gifts of imagination to bear -- and created for those who might otherwise be sunk in despair a vision of hope.
***
Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not seem to be mythic in the least. Violence appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. It is embraced with equal alacrity by people on the left and on the right, by religious liberals as well as religious conservatives. The threat of violence, it is believed, is alone able to deter aggressors. It secured us forty-five years of a balance of terror. We learned to trust the Bomb to grant us peace....
-- Walter Wink
***
As we look ahead to the Christmas holiday, the words of a familiar carol by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow may come to mind:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
Yet we're not likely to hear any more than Longfellow's first stanza coming out of a shopping-mall public-address system. The rest of the carol, were the retailers to play it, just could depress sales:
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth,"
I said; "For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!"
Longfellow wrote those words in 1864, just one year after Gettysburg. Cannon still "thundered in the South." In the year of our Lord 1864, peace on earth, and universal goodwill, seemed a distant and unattainable dream.
***
Hate succeeds. The world gives plentiful scope and means to hatred, which always finds its justifications and fulfills itself perfectly in time by destruction of the things of time. That is why war is complete and spares nothing, balks at nothing, justifies itself by all that is sacred, and seeks victory by everything that is profane.
-- Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow (New York: Counterpoint, 2000), p. 249
***
Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
-- Nazi Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering
***
To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.
-- Karl Barth
***
It is hard to make your adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them -- in which case, if you don't watch out, they cease to be adversaries.
-- Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being
Worship Resources
By Julia Ross Strope
CALL TO WORSHIP (suggested by Psalm 122 and Isaiah 2:4)
Leader: Today is the First Sunday in Advent! I am glad to be in God's house! Are you?
People: We rejoice together for opportunity to worship God in this place.
Leader: Though we are in (name of city), Old Testament scriptures speak of Jerusalem as the place for communal worship.
People: Jerusalem is a tightly built city where tribes have gone for thousands of years to give thanks to God.
Leader: There Solomon and David reigned and established places for prayer.
People: We pray for the peace of Jerusalem -- peace within the walls, peace among relatives and friends, peace for strangers.
Leader: We pray for security between peoples in the city and people at a distance.
People: We pray for peace within Jerusalem, peace between siblings and neighbors, peace that banishes fear.
Leader: Peace begins with us as we trade our war words and weapons for tools and seeds.
People: May all individuals lay down their ammunition and cease learning methods of destruction and death.
Leader: God's Word challenges us to be peacemakers, poets, and glad people! Glad to be in this holy place. Glad for breath of life!
PRAYER OF ADORATION (suggested by Isaiah 2:1-5)
Leader: Living God, We rejoice for this day, for this place and for these people! Hold our hearts close to yours; take the swords and daggers maiming our souls and with your love, piece us together so we can make workable peace. Thank you for this season of color and light, for unexpected gifts and for caring friends. We see you everywhere we turn and we are grateful. Amen.
HYMN SUGGESTIONS
"Great God, Our Source." Lutheran Book of Worship 466; tune: Great God, Our Source (can be sung to MELITA). The last phrases of each stanza are striking:
... save us from threat'ning fires that we have laid.
... Guide, Lord, in hope our broken lives.
... New forms of peace through suff'ring fires.
"Savior Of The Nations Come"
"Wake, Awake For Night Is Flying"
"O God Of Every Nation"
"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"
CALL TO CONFESSION
Leader: The scripture texts today focus our attention on living in the light and living honorably. Hope for peace is high on the list of spirit-gifts. Let us name the aspects of our behaviors and attitudes that are not pleasing in God's sight.
COMMUNITY CONFESSION (unison; suggested by Romans 13:11-14 and 14:1)
Creating God,
We often get caught in works of darkness. Without thinking, we participate in quarrels. Unaware, we spend our time on activities that do not refresh our souls nor reach out to individuals in need. Cynicism and greed discolor our view of the world. Forgive us. Guide us to think and act in the light of Christ. Amen.
WORDS OF GRACE
Leader: The good news is that God loves you and me; God invites us to believe and to experience love, mercy, and peace in Jesus the Christ. Hallelujah!
CHORAL RESPONSE
"Mary's Child," The Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990, 30; meshing stanzas 1 and 4:
Born in the night, Mary's Child,
You're a long, long way from home!
Hope of the World, Mary's Child,
Walk in our streets again.
AN AFFIRMATION (unison; suggested by from Matthew 24:36-44)
God, the Holy One comes to us again and again -- as a baby, in events, in people, in Creation.
Jesus born of Mary in Nazareth is the person from whom we learn how to be in relationship with God and how to live as neighbors.
Holy Spirit is God's dynamic presence empowering us to live hospitably in times of peace and in times of chaos.
In church, we belong to one another, growing from the cradle through the highs and lows of life and return to the clay from which we are made.
Thanks be to God for Holy Presence and for gentle people. Hallelujah!
OFFERTORY STATEMENT
Leader: Be alert for God's coming, the scriptures say! Our energies, our talents, and our moneys keep this place ready and safe to teach, serve, and heal.
THANKSGIVING PRAYER
Leader: Eternal God, thank you for coming to us again and again -- in Jesus, in creation and in unexpected encounters. Thank you for the promise of peace in our hearts and in the world. Here are our resources; stretch them till they show your grace in this corner and in all the world. Amen.
INTERCESSORY PRAYERS (leader or divided among readers)
Merciful God,
we pray for ourselves and for others. We pray for inner tranquility and outer peace. Look upon this planet. See the suffering creatures made in your image cause one another. Remake the human aspirations in our hometowns and on every continent. Let peace be enacted in Palestine, in Sudan and everywhere arrogance and disdain mock equality and living on the land.
Healing God,
diseases of all kinds attack our bodies. Pests attack food crops. Give us strength to live each day. Heal our aches and cancers; heal our backs and brains till we can rest. Give us positive thoughts as we are served by medicine and physicians. Move among corporations and establish respect for the forests, aquifers and air. Heal the earth.
Surprising God,
thank you for the varied seasons of nature and the stages of our lives. Thank you for birth story of Jesus and the awesome ways you make yourself present among us again and again. We don't want to miss a single episode of your coming! Amen.
BENEDICTION/CHARGE (suggested by Matthew 24:36-44)
Be alert for God's coming!
Be watchful for signs of Holy Presence.
Be ready for new invitations to be dynamic people!
Go from this place renewed to live joyfully and to be hospitable neighbors.
Go in peace. Amen.
A Children's Sermon
Ready and Waiting
Object: a chair
Based on Matthew 24:36-44
Good morning, boys and girls. Today is the first Sunday in the season of Advent. What happens at the end of Advent? (see if they know) Christmas! What happens on Christmas? (listen for their responses) Christmas trees, lights, decorations, presents -- these are all wonderful things about Christmas. The most important thing, though, is that Christmas is when Jesus was born. It's a very exciting time, but you know what? Christmas is still over three weeks away. We have to wait. This is what I look like when I'm waiting for something. (sit in the chair and look around) Sometimes I have to wait a long time for things. (look at your watch, scratch your head and sigh) Sometimes when I'm waiting it's hard to be patient. (look frustrated, roll your eyes and tap your feet) Waiting is hard!
Today's lesson talks about waiting. The writer, Matthew, says that we must be ready for Jesus to show up at any moment, because it could be any time. Now, of course we're waiting for Christmas. But what about the other times that Jesus shows up in the world? Jesus shows up all the time, did you know that? His spirit is everywhere: helping, healing wounds, giving strength to the weak, spreading love.
The real challenge isn't how to wait and be ready for Christmas. The hard thing is to wait for Jesus to show up TODAY. Every day he is with us. We must pray and be ready to see him when he does something in our lives. We must be looking for him all the time. He does show up. We just have to be ready to see him.
Prayer: Jesus, teach us how to wait for you. Help us be ready for you to show up at Christmas and every other day too. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, November 28, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Advent 1 / Cycle A
Dear Fellow Preachers,
In Advent, "coming," we celebrate the coming of the Redeemer into history and also anticipate the ultimate consummation of all things. Advent draws us both to the past and to the future.
On this First Sunday in Advent, the question of war and peace still tragically dominates our daily news. Even after millennia of tragic evidence to the contrary, too many of us continue to assume that violence can lead to peace and justice. Some people see in the death of Yassir Arafat a possible opening for peace to take root in the Middle East. Others are more skeptical. But the event causes us to ask the question, "Is peace possible anywhere in the world?" So for this issue of The Immediate Word, we have asked team member Carter Shelley to write on the theme, "Is Peace Possible?" drawing especially on the classic words of the First Reading of the lectionary, Isaiah 2:1-5.
Other team members, as usual, offer comments, illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
Is Peace Possible?
Isaiah 2:2-5
Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
By Carter Shelley
Once again we come to the season of Advent. Once again we read Old Testament passages that provide visions of peace and justice with the children of Israel, the Temple, and Jerusalem all playing a key role. Once again we come together to worship, pray, anticipate, and rejoice in the coming of the Prince of Peace. Yet as we prepare ourselves for Christ's coming, do we even bother to ask, "Is Peace Possible?" We may pray for peace in the Sudan, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and between Israel and the PLO, but do we really think it is possible? Isaiah expresses faith in God's ability to accomplish all that God has ordained. Isaiah depicts God as the One to whom all nations will come seeking wisdom and direction. Psalm 122 rejoices at the opportunity to worship in the house of the Lord and "to pray for the peace of Jerusalem."
Both of this Sunday's New Testament readings emphasize active readiness. Matthew 24:36-44 stresses the importance of watchfulness lest one miss the day and hour of the Son of Man's return. Paul writes in Romans 13:11-14 of the importance of righteous behavior on the part of those awaiting God's salvation. None of these biblical authors writes of peace in some placid, peaceful afterlife. It is peace on this earth that they celebrate. It is God's rule established in Jerusalem, in this world, that they anticipate. Many, many people -- Christians, Muslims, and Jews among them -- assume that war is inevitable, that it is naive to think that humanity will ever truly turn our swords into plowshares or our smart bombs into airdropped CARE packages. Yet Isaiah's vision, Christ's instruction, and Paul's admonitions all call us to action. Is peace possible?
Introductory Remarks
It seems wholly appropriate this First Sunday in Advent to place before ourselves and our congregations the challenge of making worldwide peace a reality in the twenty-first century. Failure to do so could in fact lead to the annihilation of whole nations, if not all who live on earth. In the years just after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, many Christians warned of the dangers of using such technology in waging war. Their statements are no less relevant today, though they may be less well-known. In the last chapter of church historian Roland H. Bainton's book Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation, individuals as different as philosopher Bertrand Russell and Pope Pius XII and others challenge Christians to take action to wage a war against war.
In asking "Is Peace Possible?" I have chosen to focus on the Isaiah text. It is no accident that this prophetic oracle of salvation in Isaiah 2:2-5 and its near twin in Micah 4:1-4 proclaim God's will for peace nor that the Christ child soon to be born and celebrated by the angel chorus in Luke is known as the Prince of Peace. While God's will has often been associated with acts of violence -- the conquest of Canaan, the violence of the period of the Judges, David's defeat over Goliath and the Philistines, the medieval Crusades, and by both sides in World War I -- God's central acts of salvation have not been accomplished through military actions or wholesale bloodshed. Thus, this biblical text, which anticipates God's peaceful reign over all the nations of the earth, looks forward to a time when the divine will for peace will replace the human will for war.
Isaiah 2:2-5
In his commentary on Isaiah 1-14 Otto Kaiser discusses the similarities between this oracle of salvation and its near twin in Micah 4:1-4. Kaiser does not believe that Isaiah 2:2-5 was part of Isaiah of Jerusalem's original prophecies but a word inserted at a later time, when Judah's political situation and oppression seemed just as hopeless as it did at this time when the northern kingdom of Israel had collapsed and Judah's own future looked very bleak indeed.
This oracle anticipates a time when the God who acts in history -- to liberate slaves from Egypt, guide them in their conquests, and make them a great nation under David -- will again act to liberate God's chosen people and validate their devotion. The whole world will see that God is, and always has been, both Creator and Lord of all the earth. At this end time the entire world will recognize Jerusalem's unique role as a place of worship and law-giving. Kaiser notes, "The rule of God will be established through instruction and the word of God, the word of God in the Torah." Because war is understood to be a primary consequence of human sin, 2:2-5 expresses the expectation that those who truly know God will bring war to an end" (27). Thus, God's rule will end all discord.
Those who first heard this oracle and those of us who read and hear it today are called upon to live our lives based upon the hope that God's rule will prevail over human sinfulness and that we in our lives will work in concrete ways to obey God's will and help make peace. If a person is "seized by the reality of God, he [or she] realizes that he is called not to violence and suffering but to a peaceful and just life with other men, [and women] in which alone human life can be fulfilled" (30).
In The Message of the Prophets Gerhard Von Rad supplements Kaiser's insights:
A pilgrimage of the nations to the city of Mount Zion ... describes a peaceful event: its subject is the salvation of the nations, and not their judgment. In the older version in which we have it, Isaiah 2:2-4, the first stage in the eschatological event is a miraculous change in physical geography. At the end-time, the mountain of the house of Yahweh is to rise aloft and be exalted high above all the hills round about it, so that it will be visible to all the nations. These will immediately set out and stream to it from every side, because they can no longer endure the desperate condition in which they live. They therefore come as pilgrims to Yahweh, "for out of Zion goes forth instruction," just as the bands of Israel's pilgrims year by year made the journey to Zion where, at the climax of the festival, Yahweh's will as expressed in law was proclaimed to them, so the prophecy expects that "at the end of the days" the nations will present themselves on Zion for a final settlement of all disputes, and to receive those fixed rules for living by which Yahweh grants salvation, and that thereafter -- once they have returned home again -- they will reforge their weapons of war into implements of peace (260).
Theological Implications
God often gets associated with violent acts in the Old Testament, such as the conquest of Canaan in the book of Joshua, the victories of the various Judges in the book of that name, and the successes of Saul and David. But the two most significant acts of liberation that God initiates are the liberation of the Hebrew slaves from bondage in Egypt and the liberation of all who repent and seek God's forgiveness and love through Jesus' death, resurrection, and intercession on our behalf. These two central mighty acts of God begin with a lone infant: The first was spared from the Pharaoh's terrible edit to kill all male Hebrew children by clever women who hid baby Moses in the bulrushes. The second was born to a modest, virtually anonymous couple about whom we know almost nothing except they were faithful and responsive to God's plan and their son was born in a manger. Moses became the leader to bring God's people out of Egypt without the people themselves having to take up arms. Instead God sent plagues that ultimately persuaded Pharaoh to let God's people go!
God reverses the ways of the world. God's chosen people? Slaves in Egypt, not kings and queens and the aristocratic elite. God's Messiah? Not another warrior king like David but a babe born in a manger.
That's the kind of God Isaiah 2:2-5 sees at work. Meek, mild, insignificant Jerusalem -- a place of no significance to foreign empires in the eighth century -- will become the focal point and center of God's acts of salvation and unification. Thus, Isaiah 2:2-5 celebrates and vindicates the many centuries of steadfast devotion the people of God can claim while simultaneously broadening God's rule over all peoples and nations. Furthermore, it establishes that war, strife, division, hate, persecution, and the like are not the will of God and that God will judge human conduct and rule over a peaceful nation. God wills redemption from the sorrows and sins of life. Sorrows and sins will not continue after God fulfills God's promises. God is the God of all people. God wills peace, not war. God will judge and God will bless. No matter how bleak the present, in God there is hope.
Reversing the Ways of the Word
In medieval Europe there was an annual celebration called carnival. Literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin examined the writings of Rabelais and discovered that during this one festival the serfs, poor, and subjugated people of the community once a year enjoyed a holiday celebration in which a reversal of roles between themselves and their rulers was enacted dramatically. Through the use of costumes, plays, skits, and so on the beleaguered populace took on the roles of the lord of the manor, the knights, and kings. Because it was "controlled gaiety" and all participants knew the role reversals were temporary, the men in power positions tolerated the plays and skits that portrayed them as the underlings, serfs, servants, and such. Bakhtin identifies these carnival celebrations as subversive acts on the part of the people. The fact that they act out a reversal of the existing order, means they can imagine a time when that order will be reversed and they will be liberated from agonizing physical toil, scarce food, unreasonable tax burdens, and living virtually as slaves. They may not live the lives they play but they can dream of and envision a time when it will be different.
That same dynamic is at play in Isaiah 2:2-5. It's the last third of the eighth century B.C.E. Israel has already fallen and is in the process of becoming assimilated into the Assyrian Empire. Judah has squeaked by without becoming an occupied puppet state, but its economic back has been broken by a usurious tax burden. At this nadir in Judah's history, this oracle of salvation is offered to give them courage, hope, and an affirmation that ultimately God truly is on their side and will vindicate their trust in God.
Just as the medieval serfs knew they didn't have the resources or the opportunity to overthrow their kings, lords, and masters in order to work for themselves and be free, the citizens of Judah also recognized there was no way they alone could prevent the empire-building nations' violent conquest.
Their only hope is in God but oh, what a wonderful hope it is! Instead of their land being laid waste, their resources stolen, their political identity squashed, and their anointed king replaced with a puppet ruler -- not to mention the risk of loss of their religious identify and all they hold dear -- Isaiah 2:2-5 allows them to anticipate and rejoice in the future supremacy of their God. Their center Jerusalem will be the place to which all nations come to worship God, celebrate God's power and justice, and recognize the unique and honored place the children of Israel have played in it all by being God's faithful people. All nations will bow down before God, and God's children of Israel will hold a place of honor for having recognized and lived under this self-same God, having been blessed and becoming a blessing for other peoples and nations.
They won't achieve this amazing goal with physical strength, weapons, war, or other acts of violence. Quite the contrary, the vision of the world presented in this oracle of salvation is a world in which swords will be made into plowshares and all will have enough to eat and to live and rejoice in God's goodness. This reversal of their desperate present through God's salvific act in the future will not be based on bloodshed or which country is more powerful or has the more intimidating weapon. It all depends on God.
Theological Application
God's role in the Exodus; in Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection; and in Isaiah 2:2-5 all have significant implications: (1) There are other ways to make good things happen than by going to war. (2) God is creative in the way God transforms situations of human bondage, and we who seek to be God's servants can also be creative when we set our minds "to study war no more." We are called upon to put as much energy into peacemaking as currently gets put into war-making by so many others. (3) The impossible is possible. (4) It's up to us to take this question seriously and look at ways to say yes to it. (5) There are concrete examples of places it has worked: South Africa in ultimately resolving apartheid, the USSR, which fell due to bankrupting itself on military spending, India's liberation from Great Britain at the end of WWII. Moreover, with the death of Yassir Arafat, slight though it may be, there is an opportunity for both Israel and the Palestinians to compromise and give up some of what they want in terms of land and rights in order to establish peace for both peoples.
Contemporary Context
There is a moving statue in Moscow's Sculpture Garden of a man with the physique of Michelangelo's David or a younger Arnold Swartzenegger (see web link). The man is holding a hammer that looks like it would be used in beating iron into horseshoes or swords. The man has his right arm raised high behind his head at its farthest peek and one can imagine it slamming down on the sword held in his other hand. The sword rests on an anvil and is already partially reshaped into a plowshare with its center flattened out and curved so that its point can be used for plowing, not killing. It's an excellent visual portrayal of the words used in Isaiah. You can find and print a copy of it to use as a bulletin cover by going to: http://www.lindsayfincher.com/gallery/sculpture_garden_03/sg_sword_plows_lg
To ask the question "Is Peace Possible?" Is to stick one's neck out as a homiletician, since many will immediately dub one as naive, idealistic, unable to grasp the complexities of war, and so on. Peace is needed on many levels. War may be the most obvious and awful example, but there are many others as well that originate from similar flaws and perversions of human nature. Isaiah 2:2-5 with its vivid image of swords made into plowshares doesn't account for other kinds of violence we humans turn on each other such as child abuse, mental and emotional persecution, divorce, and so much more, but it certainly is an obvious place to start.
For those who might hear such a sermon as "not supporting our troops," it is legitimate to begin with a statement of affirmation as to one's personal recognition of what it means to live in the United States and to have the kind of freedoms that we enjoy. One might also acknowledge that few American citizens want our military to remain in Iraq or Afghanistan any longer than is absolutely necessary.
This week provides an opportunity to introduce your congregation to some of your church's statements and policies about peace. There are some excellent denominational resources one can use in asking the question "Is Peace Possible?" You may want to do an online search of your denomination's statements and actions in the area of peacemaking.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of war to choose from on November 28, 2004. The ongoing fight between the rebels and the Sudanese is one. Heartbreakingly, resolution of the war may have no affect on the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Thus our prayers and political pressure on our political leaders and the UN need to continue. The American and British efforts to quell the insurgents in Iraq continue to provide challenges and complexities not imagined when war was first declared in March 2003. Arafat's demise may lead to peaceful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, but so long as there are radicals who hate the thought of compromise, such efforts will continue to inspire further acts of terrorism and hatred.
If we want to be peacemakers we need to beware of the euphemisms we use to soften the realties of war. "Casualties" refer to deaths. "Peacekeepers" often refer to nuclear warheads. The term "liberation" frequently serves as a cover for what really takes place: control and domination.
Trying to explore whether peace is truly possible is an uphill battle (pun intended). To be a peacenik, a peace-nut, a peacemaker is to be at odds with the norms of American culture. There's a whole arm of the entertainment industry dedicated to war and violence -- cops and robbers, attorneys and convicted felons, murderers, and so on. It's big business. It may be Halliburton today who profits, but there were plenty of previous individuals and corporations who made a bundle on every war we have declared. It's also a national unifier. Nowhere near as many of us sacrifice, pray, give up our favorite foods, write letters to our senators and congressmen about poverty in American or children who lack healthcare, but we do put magnetic yellow ribbons on the back of our cars, display our country's flag, slap "Support our Troops" signs on our cars and think those who believe this war is wrong are unpatriotic, are against the troops, and are jerks. Can you imagine what life would be like in our nation if people put the same kind of energy, prayer, sacrifice, and zeal behind something humanitarian that was similar to the emotional, economic, and political support our nation provided during World War II?
It doesn't take a genius to know that violence appeals to many among us, not only as a way to protect one's rights but also as a form of entertainment. I did a quick brain check to see what movies I could recall that seem to celebrate violence as the one true way a man can prove his manhood. I put these movies into several categories:
1. The Peaceable Guy Kicks Butt: Gary Cooper in High Noon; Mel Gibson in The Patriot and Braveheart; Harrison Ford in Air Force One.
2. The Hero Who Makes the World Safe from Evil People: Kevin Costner in Robin Hood; Angelina Jolie in The Tomb Raider movies; Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Bronson each in turn as James Bond; Charlie's Angels.
3. The Conquering Hero: Alexander, starring Collin Farrell, just in time for Christmas!
4. Too Raw for Television Movies about War: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan; because its violence is too accurate a depiction of the landing at Normandy, it was blocked by some television stations while the scene most filmgoers found the most excruciating in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was the camera's unvarnished record of a mother's emotional anguish over the death of her soldier son in Iraq.
While it is essential for preachers to place before our congregations questions such as the one posed for this Sunday's The Immediate Word, it is equally important to lead the congregation in the study of peacemaking in a variety of ways that help to concretize the ways of peace and give ourselves an alternative to the ways of violence and war. Along with the study of such excellent books as Roland H. Bainton's Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace and Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade, many denominations have their own curriculum, peacemaking statements, and so on.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: Is peace possible? My first reaction is, "It sure doesn't look like it." My second reaction is, "Well, if peace isn't possible we've sure been wasting a lot of time praying for it!" We fill our worship with it ("In peace let us pray to the Lord"), wish it for one another in the middle of the service ("Peace be with you"), and may conclude with a blessing of "The peace of God which passes all understanding...." A lot of that echoes the fundamental moment when the risen Lord appeared to his disciples and said "Peace be with you."
Even when the reality, and to some extent the necessity, of war is recognized in some situations, it is supposed to be subordinated to peace. One of the criteria of the traditional just war doctrine is the ultimate goal of war as a last resort is the establishment of peace.
But what kind of peace is meant? One British chieftain of the first century, looking around at the devastation that accompanied the Roman conquest of that island, said "They make a desert and call it peace." That commentary on the pax Romana could also be applied to a lot of other technically peaceful results of war, including some aspects of the pax Americana.
The biblical concept of shalom is much more comprehensive and profound than an absence of combat. It includes justice and genuine accord between people. Even more widely, shalom includes peace with the natural world and with non-human creatures. Biblical pictures of peace like those in Isaiah 11, with the wolf dwelling with the lamb, begin to bring out this full meaning.
But as someone has said, the wolf may lie down with the lamb but the lamb won't sleep very well! That picture suggests that we aren't just a few tweaks away from the shalom God desires, but that a radical transformation will be required. That is also suggested by our text in Isaiah 2, where the "mountain of the Lord's house," Mount Zion (which is actually pretty small potatoes as a mountain) will be the highest of all mountains. Even if that just means higher than Mount Hermon and doesn't take into account Everest, it requires a profound change in the world -- a physical image hinting at the spiritual and psychological change that would be required if genuine peace were to be established among the nations.
It would require also a transformation of the way we use our knowledge of the world and the technologies that it has given rise to. "They shall beat their swords into plowshares...." It's true that some advances in military technology have given rise to some peacetime benefits. But on balance the coming of real peace would release tremendous resources to improve the welfare of individuals and society. For a brief time a few years ago, with the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War, and the Oslo peace accords, it looked as if that might come to pass. But it was an opportunity that we (as a world, not just as Americans) failed to grasp.
Jesus is both realistic and challenging about issues of war and peace. He tells us that there will be "wars and rumors of wars," but his blessing in the Sermon on the Mount is given to the peacemakers. It is a challenge that is offered to each one of us. We pray that the leaders of the nations would be peacemakers, but the well-known prayer of Saint Francis reminds us that that role begins at an individual level. "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." Again it is a matter of transformation. Advent is, to some extent, a penitential season, but we ought to encourage not just repentance for this, that, or the other individual sin. It should be an opportunity for Christians to open themselves to be made instruments for God's peace, in preparation for the coming of the Prince of Peace.
Carlos Wilton responds: Today's Old Testament lesson dates from a time of terrible trial for Israel. The once-mighty nation, the empire of David and Solomon, has fallen upon very hard times. First it split in two, into the northern and southern kingdoms. Then it lost all its conquered territory. Now only the southern kingdom of Judah is left -- with a corrupt king, a devastated economy, and an army that's the laughingstock of all the mightier nations round about. The empire of Babylon is getting stronger by the day. Anyone with eyes to see is well aware that Judah's days are numbered.
The situation appears hopeless. And to add insult to injury, the prophet Isaiah is walking up and down the streets of Jerusalem, proclaiming to any who will listen how evil and sinful the people have become, and how God has a terrible punishment in store.
Not all of Isaiah's prophecies, though, are prophecies of doom. Every once in a while, the prophet's message changes key, from the minor to the major. As determined as Isaiah is to cultivate true repentance in Israel, he still offers the people some relief, poetically describing the glorious things God has planned for them in the very distant future.
Isaiah spins a tale about a mountain, a great mountain, higher than all the others. (His listeners would have realized, instantly, that he's talking about Mount Zion, the mount on which the city of Jerusalem is built.) To this mountain shall come streaming all the peoples of the earth. They shall come there to receive God's judgment -- and only after they are judged shall they -- in words that are among Isaiah's most famous --
beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
It's remarkable how timely those words continue to be. Two and a half millennia since Isaiah first spoke them, the human race is still awaiting the day when swords are transformed into plowshares.
Outside the United Nations building in New York is a plaque with these very words inscribed upon it. It was placed there soon after the UN was founded, from out of the ashes and rubble of World War II. And still warfare rages among the nations of the earth: Iraq being only the latest in a long string of armed conflicts. We of the human race aren't even close to fulfilling the prophet's dream of peace.
It's a beautiful dream, yes -- but in the vision of the prophet, it's also a reality that's becoming real even now. Prophetic dreams such as these are the first fruits of the rich harvest God will one day bring to all the faithful (and, through them, to all the peoples of the earth). Our anticipation for that day of fulfillment is intense. There are times when we wish the angels of heaven would swoop in and right the wrongs that are so obvious, and bring in God's kingdom of justice and peace.
Yet, as Jesus himself says, "No one knows the day or the hour." It's not for us to know. For us, there is only the waiting. Such waiting is the task of Advent.
Related Illustrations
From Carlos Wilton
The year is 1941, and Hitler's armies are on the march. The Nazi advance is heading with astonishing speed toward the city of Leningrad -- now called, once again, by its historic name, St. Petersburg.
Knowing the Nazis were on their way, and fearing what would happen if the city fell, the staff of the famous Hermitage Museum worked around the clock to pack up the priceless paintings and sculptures and move them to a place of safety. On July 1, the director of the museum stood weeping at the railroad station as three trains, loaded with the treasures of the Hermitage, prepared to leave for the Russian heartland. Not even the conductors knew the final, secret destination of those railway cars.
The third train never left. Hitler's forces had by then closed the circle around the city. Two and a half million people were trapped there, under appalling conditions of hunger and deprivation.
Knowing how important it was for the citizens of Leningrad to have some diversion, the museum staff kept their palatial building open to visitors. Only minor works remained on display, but the building itself was a work of art. Maybe as the beleaguered city-dwellers walked through its half-empty halls, gazing at so many empty frames, they might remember what once had been, and would be led to hope for its return.
The day came when even the Hermitage building itself came to be at risk. Bombs falling nearby shattered the windows. Heavy snows drifted in, soaking the once-elegant parquet floors. The museum staff enlisted Russian soldiers to shovel up the mixture of snow and glass, take it out bucket by bucket, and install new windows to protect the building.
There was no material way to thank the soldiers for what they'd done. But then a longtime Hermitage guide, by the name of Pavel Dubchevski, had an idea. He offered to give the soldiers a highly unusual museum tour.
Dubchevski led the hollow-eyed, starving men, clad in their ragged uniforms, through the cavernous halls of the museum. So many picture frames hung empty on the walls, but the guide paused at each one, describing to the soldiers the painting that used to hang there. Later, the soldiers would recall that Dubchevski's descriptions were so vivid and powerful that they almost felt they could see the world-famous art treasures.
Pavel Dubchevski, the Hermitage Museum guide, was filling a role that day very much like that of a prophet. He brought his gifts of imagination to bear -- and created for those who might otherwise be sunk in despair a vision of hope.
***
Violence is so successful as a myth precisely because it does not seem to be mythic in the least. Violence appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. It is embraced with equal alacrity by people on the left and on the right, by religious liberals as well as religious conservatives. The threat of violence, it is believed, is alone able to deter aggressors. It secured us forty-five years of a balance of terror. We learned to trust the Bomb to grant us peace....
-- Walter Wink
***
As we look ahead to the Christmas holiday, the words of a familiar carol by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow may come to mind:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
Yet we're not likely to hear any more than Longfellow's first stanza coming out of a shopping-mall public-address system. The rest of the carol, were the retailers to play it, just could depress sales:
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth,"
I said; "For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!"
Longfellow wrote those words in 1864, just one year after Gettysburg. Cannon still "thundered in the South." In the year of our Lord 1864, peace on earth, and universal goodwill, seemed a distant and unattainable dream.
***
Hate succeeds. The world gives plentiful scope and means to hatred, which always finds its justifications and fulfills itself perfectly in time by destruction of the things of time. That is why war is complete and spares nothing, balks at nothing, justifies itself by all that is sacred, and seeks victory by everything that is profane.
-- Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow (New York: Counterpoint, 2000), p. 249
***
Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
-- Nazi Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering
***
To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.
-- Karl Barth
***
It is hard to make your adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them -- in which case, if you don't watch out, they cease to be adversaries.
-- Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being
Worship Resources
By Julia Ross Strope
CALL TO WORSHIP (suggested by Psalm 122 and Isaiah 2:4)
Leader: Today is the First Sunday in Advent! I am glad to be in God's house! Are you?
People: We rejoice together for opportunity to worship God in this place.
Leader: Though we are in (name of city), Old Testament scriptures speak of Jerusalem as the place for communal worship.
People: Jerusalem is a tightly built city where tribes have gone for thousands of years to give thanks to God.
Leader: There Solomon and David reigned and established places for prayer.
People: We pray for the peace of Jerusalem -- peace within the walls, peace among relatives and friends, peace for strangers.
Leader: We pray for security between peoples in the city and people at a distance.
People: We pray for peace within Jerusalem, peace between siblings and neighbors, peace that banishes fear.
Leader: Peace begins with us as we trade our war words and weapons for tools and seeds.
People: May all individuals lay down their ammunition and cease learning methods of destruction and death.
Leader: God's Word challenges us to be peacemakers, poets, and glad people! Glad to be in this holy place. Glad for breath of life!
PRAYER OF ADORATION (suggested by Isaiah 2:1-5)
Leader: Living God, We rejoice for this day, for this place and for these people! Hold our hearts close to yours; take the swords and daggers maiming our souls and with your love, piece us together so we can make workable peace. Thank you for this season of color and light, for unexpected gifts and for caring friends. We see you everywhere we turn and we are grateful. Amen.
HYMN SUGGESTIONS
"Great God, Our Source." Lutheran Book of Worship 466; tune: Great God, Our Source (can be sung to MELITA). The last phrases of each stanza are striking:
... save us from threat'ning fires that we have laid.
... Guide, Lord, in hope our broken lives.
... New forms of peace through suff'ring fires.
"Savior Of The Nations Come"
"Wake, Awake For Night Is Flying"
"O God Of Every Nation"
"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"
CALL TO CONFESSION
Leader: The scripture texts today focus our attention on living in the light and living honorably. Hope for peace is high on the list of spirit-gifts. Let us name the aspects of our behaviors and attitudes that are not pleasing in God's sight.
COMMUNITY CONFESSION (unison; suggested by Romans 13:11-14 and 14:1)
Creating God,
We often get caught in works of darkness. Without thinking, we participate in quarrels. Unaware, we spend our time on activities that do not refresh our souls nor reach out to individuals in need. Cynicism and greed discolor our view of the world. Forgive us. Guide us to think and act in the light of Christ. Amen.
WORDS OF GRACE
Leader: The good news is that God loves you and me; God invites us to believe and to experience love, mercy, and peace in Jesus the Christ. Hallelujah!
CHORAL RESPONSE
"Mary's Child," The Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990, 30; meshing stanzas 1 and 4:
Born in the night, Mary's Child,
You're a long, long way from home!
Hope of the World, Mary's Child,
Walk in our streets again.
AN AFFIRMATION (unison; suggested by from Matthew 24:36-44)
God, the Holy One comes to us again and again -- as a baby, in events, in people, in Creation.
Jesus born of Mary in Nazareth is the person from whom we learn how to be in relationship with God and how to live as neighbors.
Holy Spirit is God's dynamic presence empowering us to live hospitably in times of peace and in times of chaos.
In church, we belong to one another, growing from the cradle through the highs and lows of life and return to the clay from which we are made.
Thanks be to God for Holy Presence and for gentle people. Hallelujah!
OFFERTORY STATEMENT
Leader: Be alert for God's coming, the scriptures say! Our energies, our talents, and our moneys keep this place ready and safe to teach, serve, and heal.
THANKSGIVING PRAYER
Leader: Eternal God, thank you for coming to us again and again -- in Jesus, in creation and in unexpected encounters. Thank you for the promise of peace in our hearts and in the world. Here are our resources; stretch them till they show your grace in this corner and in all the world. Amen.
INTERCESSORY PRAYERS (leader or divided among readers)
Merciful God,
we pray for ourselves and for others. We pray for inner tranquility and outer peace. Look upon this planet. See the suffering creatures made in your image cause one another. Remake the human aspirations in our hometowns and on every continent. Let peace be enacted in Palestine, in Sudan and everywhere arrogance and disdain mock equality and living on the land.
Healing God,
diseases of all kinds attack our bodies. Pests attack food crops. Give us strength to live each day. Heal our aches and cancers; heal our backs and brains till we can rest. Give us positive thoughts as we are served by medicine and physicians. Move among corporations and establish respect for the forests, aquifers and air. Heal the earth.
Surprising God,
thank you for the varied seasons of nature and the stages of our lives. Thank you for birth story of Jesus and the awesome ways you make yourself present among us again and again. We don't want to miss a single episode of your coming! Amen.
BENEDICTION/CHARGE (suggested by Matthew 24:36-44)
Be alert for God's coming!
Be watchful for signs of Holy Presence.
Be ready for new invitations to be dynamic people!
Go from this place renewed to live joyfully and to be hospitable neighbors.
Go in peace. Amen.
A Children's Sermon
Ready and Waiting
Object: a chair
Based on Matthew 24:36-44
Good morning, boys and girls. Today is the first Sunday in the season of Advent. What happens at the end of Advent? (see if they know) Christmas! What happens on Christmas? (listen for their responses) Christmas trees, lights, decorations, presents -- these are all wonderful things about Christmas. The most important thing, though, is that Christmas is when Jesus was born. It's a very exciting time, but you know what? Christmas is still over three weeks away. We have to wait. This is what I look like when I'm waiting for something. (sit in the chair and look around) Sometimes I have to wait a long time for things. (look at your watch, scratch your head and sigh) Sometimes when I'm waiting it's hard to be patient. (look frustrated, roll your eyes and tap your feet) Waiting is hard!
Today's lesson talks about waiting. The writer, Matthew, says that we must be ready for Jesus to show up at any moment, because it could be any time. Now, of course we're waiting for Christmas. But what about the other times that Jesus shows up in the world? Jesus shows up all the time, did you know that? His spirit is everywhere: helping, healing wounds, giving strength to the weak, spreading love.
The real challenge isn't how to wait and be ready for Christmas. The hard thing is to wait for Jesus to show up TODAY. Every day he is with us. We must pray and be ready to see him when he does something in our lives. We must be looking for him all the time. He does show up. We just have to be ready to see him.
Prayer: Jesus, teach us how to wait for you. Help us be ready for you to show up at Christmas and every other day too. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, November 28, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
