Peace (Advent 1)

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 24:36-44

Peace

Today, on this first Sunday of Advent, the gospel calls us to the way of peace.  We’re asked to imagine a world without weapons, a world without enemies.  We’re asked to pray for and work towards a world where all the nations, with all their differences, are gathered into fruitful projects of collaboration that benefit and bless all persons equally.

This vision of peace is both moving and frustrating.  Moving because this is the world I want to inhabit.  Frustrating because it is so obviously not true.  All over the world, tribal violence and ethnic cleansing continue to threaten people’s lives.  When I hear of Sudanese rebels chopping off their enemy’s arms and legs - this takes me past what I can understand, past what I can bear.  The hatred between Israelis and Palestinians who can no longer see one another as human but only as pure evil - this saps my ability to hope for anything.  You would think the major religions would lead the way towards peace, but Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus are often the very source of the problem.  The fear of terrorism is now a regular part of our lives.  Here in our own country, there is little sense of common purpose or shared values.  Wealth is disproportionately pooled in the hands of the rich.  The working poor are ground to bits.  And the tone of our conversations about almost everything is angry and divisive.

The temptation to despair is enormous.  And into this despair, Jesus speaks a word to us: Stay awake.  Be ready.  Advent offers us an opportunity to move beyond this frustration.  A chance to wake up.  To live in expectation.  To ready ourselves for a fresh, new word from the God who is making peace.

Isaiah’s Vision

Before we get to Isaiah’s vision, a quick note on Isaiah’s life and career.  Isaiah was a prophet living and working in Jerusalem during the latter part of the 8th Century B.C.  It was a turbulent, chaotic, confusing time to be a part of God’s people.   The latter half of the 8th century was catastrophic for Israel and Judah.  Egypt had been the dominant regional empire but was beginning to lose its grip.  In that power vaccuum, Assyria was expanding its reach all the way to the Mediterranean.  

During Isaiah’s life, the Northern tribes of Israel were invaded, routed, and occupied by Assyria.  By 721 B.C., the Northern Kingdom ceased to exist.  According to Assyrian records, 27,290 Israelites were deported.  It was only a small part of the population, but it included all those with any learning, skills, or political influence (2 Kings 17:4-6).  The Southern tribes of Judah - and Jerusalem - avoided captivity, but only by becoming a subservient client state.

So that’s Isaiah’s world.  Two-thirds of Israel is simply wiped out.  A third remains but only as a slave state to a powerful Assyrian empire.  And it’s in that world that Isaiah articulates his vision that Yahweh, Israel’s God, and Jerusalem, Israel’s capitol, will one day broker world peace.  This is not the victorious voice of a ruling power.  It is the surprising hope of a people with no current leverage or power.

First, Isaiah sees God’s mountain exalted (v. 2)

“In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills.”  The Jewish temple in Jerusalem sat on a hill.  It wasn’t a very big hill.  In fact, the nearby Mount of Olives was 100 feet higher.  Mountain ranges throughout the region towered over this temple hill.  Yet Isaiah sees the temple mount exalted above all other high points.  He sees all the peoples of the world streaming to this exalted mountain, and ascending God’s mountain together towards peace.

In a political world ruled by distant, foreign cities, along with foreign gods, Isaiah imagines Jerusalem as the center of God’s world wide rule.

Second, Isaiah sees God’s mountain as a destination for all peoples (v. 3)

 

“All the nations shall stream to it.  Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord’.”  No longer is the Jerusalem Temple imagined as a place for a particular religious group to worship.  It offers something that attracts all human beings - no matter their tribe or nation or religion.  Peace isn’t a religious idea.  Peace is the desire of all human beings.

The powerful armies of Egypt and Assyria are familiar with the roads leading to the region of Jerusalem.  They have been making this journey frequently in order to kill and capture Israelites and other regional kingdoms.  Isaiah imagines all the nations that have been coming to destroy Jerusalem now coming to Jerusalem in order to learn God’s ways of peace.  The nations come to the mountain because they want to hear the “word of the Lord.”  They want to receive God’s “instruction” (literally torah).  

What is surprising about Isaiah’s vision is the absence of revenge.  Isaiah does not envision the violent destruction of Israel’s enemies.  He does not imagine wiping them out.  This is not a revenge fantasy.  It’s a vision of hope and reconciliation.  He imagines that the fully established reign of Israel’s God will be good news for all of Israel’s enemies.  

Third, Isaiah sees weapons reshaped into tools (v. 4)

“God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks/shears.”  Isaiah sees a courtroom scene, but with a twist.  God is working as a judge, an arbiter of cases between nations.    The parties come into the courtroom bent on winning but leave the courtroom changed.  God’s judgment doesn’t create winners and losers.  The verdict creates reconciliation.  People will come into God’s courtroom as enemies and leave as friends.

Isaiah sees all the different peoples of the world in the grip of a new desire.  God has changed them.  God has moved them from a desire to crush one another to a desire to collaborate.  The metals formerly shaped into weapons like swords and spears will be melted down and repurposed.  Now they will be shaped into ploughs for working the fruitful fields.  And pruning shears for cultivating fruit trees.  Swords and spears aren’t good for anything other than destroying and killing.  

The same is true for missiles, cluster bombs, nuclear bombs, biological weapons, ied’s, and guns.  So much of our energy and our resources are devoted to weapons that kill.  Isaiah invites us to imagine all this energy poured into productive, constructive, fruitful forms of living and sharing.  Nearly 50% of our national budget will go towards military and defense purposes this year.  This is a world that stands under God’s judgement.  Isaiah tells us that this will not last.  You and I have to decide which world we want to be a part of.  A world of bloated defense budgets and expensive weaponry, or a world where people work together in productive and fruitful projects.

Matthew 24

In our readings today, Isaiah’s vision is paired with Jesus’ warning, “Get Ready!”

On a final visit to Jerusalem, Jesus tells his disciples that the impressive Temple buildings will be “thrown down.”  The disciples want to know more: When is all this going to happen?  “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

This is a good question I think.  WHEN?  When will all the nations stream to God’s mountain to learn the ways of peace?  WHEN will we see weapons repurposed into ploughs and pruning shears?  Jesus doesn’t answer our question.  He just says, “stay awake, keep watch, be ready.”

Remember Noah’s flood.  People weren’t ready.  They didn’t know it was coming.  They were eating and drinking (how dare they!), and they were getting married and raising families (the nerve!).  In other words, they were busy doing all that our lives require.  And they lived these ordinary lives, right up to the day Noah entered the ark.  And then boom, the floods come and swept them away.  

Listen, all of us want to know when God’s peace will arrive and remake the world.  We might be tempted to lose heart, to simply put our heads down and focus on the chores of work and family.  Jesus warns us that staying busy and distracted might be our ruin.  Here’s what it will be like.  Two men will be doing their job, just out plowing the field, then boom, all of a sudden one is swept away like the people in the flood.  Two women are doing what they do everyday, grinding meal so their families can eat.  And boom, all of a sudden one is swept away like the people in the flood.  Not fair, you say?  These poor people weren’t doing anything wrong, you say?  This isn’t a story about what’s fair.  It’s not a story about the punishment of the wicked.  It’s a story about who’s paying attention and who’s not!

Consider what happens when a thief invades your home to steal from you.  When someone wants to break into your home, they don’t ask permission.  They don’t send a card asking you to RSVP.   A talented thief would break in when you least expect it.  And if you did get word that the thief was coming around 2am, you’d stay up and keep watch, waiting behind the door with a baseball bat.  Thieves don’t advertise when they’re coming.  Neither will the Son of Man.  Neither will God’s peace.  It happens at an unexpected hour.  Keep watch, be ready.

Advent Spirituality

Advent is the season in which God calls us forward into large and hopeful visions of what’s possible.  God is bringing about a world of peace.  Isaiah does not imagine a divine magic trick that happens without us.  Rather, the nations will respond to God by turning their weapons into tools for cultivating fields.  God makes peace by inviting us into the work of peace-making.  So I want to end with two specific appeals to this community: This Advent season may our lives be pulled away from narrow and selfish loyalties and into the bigness of God’s dreams for a world of peace.

1) First, Isaiah reminds us that our hope is NOT narrowly focused on our own individual outcomes.  The rather individualistic question of whether or not I am “going to heaven” does have a place.  There is good news for people worried about whether God loves us -- in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, we have a sign that we have been forgiven, and will be granted a share in Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead.  But if that question dominates our lives, we are no longer hearing the gospel.  The world is not simply the stage for an individual drama between God and me.  God’s work to bring peace to the world IS the drama.  Isaiah pictures our hope as public, political, international reconciliation.  And I can either throw my energies into that large vision and work and pray for its reality, or I can stay on the sidelines.

2) Second, Isaiah reminds us that the future is NOT an American future.  Rather, we are invited to surrender any narrow allegiance to American preeminence and dominance for something better.   Selfishness and self-absorption of any kind are a sinful affront to God’s peace-making.  There is no way forward during Advent other than the way of repentance.  Any alignment of my life with the dominant empire of which I’m a citizen over against the flourishing of all the world’s people in peace stands under God’s judgement.

Isaiah’s vision ends with an appeal (v. 5).  

“O house of Jacob, Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”  Come to this mountain.  Come to Israel’s God.  Come to Jesus Christ, the Son of Man whose crucifixion puts an end to violent retaliation.  Come to the way of peace.