Isaiah 11: 1-9 & Matthew 3: 1-12
Roger Lynn
December 10, 2017
2nd Sunday in Advent
(click here for the audio for this sermon)
(click here for the video for the entire worship service - the sermon stars at 21:21)
Every year the second Sunday in Advent is Peace Sunday. It is a time to pause and reflect on what it means to speak about God’s Shalom, and to envision what it would look like if we were to experience it in our lives and in our world. One Sunday a year is certainly not adequate for such a vitally important topic. But at least it is a start.
We might begin with a reminder about the definition of Shalom. It is a Hebrew word which often gets translated as Peace. But perhaps a fuller, richer, more accurate translation would be Wholeness. When we seek to live our lives in harmony with God we begin to experience healing. The brokenness which contributes to so much pain and violence in our world begins to heal. Peace, real peace, emerges. It is peace which rises up out of an expansive re-orientation of all of life, rather than a peace which is imposed through conflict being repressed. It is not about negotiated settlements. It is about deep and genuine transformation. Such peace does not come simply because we work hard enough to make it happen. It comes when we allow God’s Spirit to flow in us and through us.
Take, for example, Isaiah’s grand vision of peace which we heard read a few moments ago. Speaking to a people whose future looked bleak, he offers them an amazing word of hope concerning God’s radically inclusive peace. It will be shaped by wisdom and understanding, a concern for the poor and the meek of the world. There will be no limits to who can be brought together – even those whom we would consider “natural” enemies, like lambs and wolves, goats and leopards, calves and lions, poisonous snakes and little children. The peace Isaiah envisions is not “natural” – at least not in the way we normally use that word. It requires nothing less than the transforming power of God’s active presence. And such unnatural peace is precisely what Isaiah has in mind. But right in the middle of this marvelous vision, we see what I believe is evidence of a blind spot. Transformation abounds. Enemies live together in peaceable co-existence. All is right with the world. And then in the midst of it all, Isaiah adds, “...and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.” (Isaiah 11:4) Of course wickedness has no place in this peaceful reality which is being described, but apparently it simply never occurs to Isaiah that any other solution might be possible besides killing them. Such an answer certainly has its appeal – the problem is neatly eliminated. There is no need for the messy business of actually struggling and growing and discovering ways to live with those whom we consider to be enemies. But I do not believe it is an answer that fits well with God’s Shalom. Isaiah apparently wasn’t even aware of an inconsistency. Such is the nature of blind spots.
We find an even more glaring example in the story of John the Baptist. Here is a man who was so close and yet so far from understanding. Matthew’s Gospel begins the description of John with his declaration that “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2) This is the same message which Jesus proclaimed. It is at the very heart of what we who follow Jesus believe. It is the ever-present closeness of God, right here in the very midst of us, that offers us both hope and meaning for our living. It is God’s presence in our lives that makes possible the healing wholeness of God’s Shalom. John is clearly on to something important. It even seems he has some sense that the nearness of God will be revealed in a particularly powerful way in the life and ministry of Jesus. But as Matthew tells the story it quickly becomes apparent that John is so caught up in his own ideas about how God works in the world he is unable to fully grasp the radical nature of the message Jesus is coming to proclaim. In his tirade against the Pharisees and Sadducees he rightly challenges them to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Repentance means recognizing that the path we’re on is leading us away from life and making the decision to change directions. It only makes sense that if such a decision is genuine it will be evident in the way your life is being lived. But he doesn’t stop there. He goes on to threaten that, “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matthew 3:10) We even see this harsh, unbending view of God in John’s description of Jesus. “His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:12) Whenever I read that I want to ask, “Who is he talking about? Because it sure isn’t the Jesus I find revealed in the Gospels.” Matthew even provides us with a dramatic illustration of John’s misunderstanding in the very next story. We are told that when Jesus came to be baptized by John the heavens opened up. I have no doubt John was surprised by what he saw. Based on his preaching, he might have expected thunder and lightning and balls of fire to rain down when the heavens opened up. Instead he sees a dove – ancient symbol of God’s peace. John’s message does not fit well with a vision of God’s Shalom. He wasn’t even aware of an inconsistency. Such is the nature of blind spots.
We all want peace. We want it in our personal lives. We want it in our communities and in our nation. We want it in our world. There is even something appealing about the idea of peace being shalom – healing and wholeness. We could definitely do with a little wholeness these days. But we would do well to learn a lesson from Isaiah and John. If we are not very careful we may find ourselves seeking peace based more on our own blind spots than on God’s all-inclusive shalom. We live in a world where nuclear weapons have been called peace-keepers, where our government seeks to bring peace to another country by bombing them, where those with dissenting views are encouraged to keep the peace by keeping silent and learning to live with the rules, where we secure our own peace by imposing force on those who disagree. If and when we dare to envision peace in our world today, what does it look like? Is it peace that is achieved through the elimination (extermination) of our enemies? Or is it peace that is achieved through the transformation of brokenness into a new and uniting wholeness? It is peace that is dependent solely on our own efforts? Or is it peace that is dependent on being open to the transforming power of God’s Spirit? I believe that God is always calling us to ever more fully live into the reality of peace – personally, locally and globally. Whose peace are we seeking?
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