The Greatest Gifts: Peace Isaiah 2:1-5 At this time of year, there are pictures painted all around us of perfection, visions of fantasies fulfilled and dreams come true. On television, in store windows, in magazine and newspaper ads, we see beautiful couples showering one another with expensive gifts and looks of absolute adoration as if that diamond bracelet has simply capped off what was already the world s most complete, perfect love. We see snow- covered landscapes easily traversed by new cars with big red bows on them no sign of traffic problems, bursting pipes, or freezing neighbors, no tires spinning on the ice just the perfect beauty of the new- fallen snow. We see sumptuous meals being eaten by beautiful, fashionable, slender families. The dishes on the table are perfectly cooked and the family doing the eating glows at one another with loving smiles as they use their best manners to pass the green beans while the family s well- groomed golden- retriever rests in front of the wood- burning fireplace. And while we know, at least in the back of our minds, that these are mere dreams of marketers and PR executives, tools of manipulation to convince us that our families, our bodies, our relationships, our homes could be this perfect, too, if we just purchased these items, which are on sale for a limited time only we have to admit that a piece of us is captured by these images hook, line, and sinker. A piece of us wants to believe that if we have the perfect decorations, the perfect gifts, the perfect meals, then our problems will just work themselves out during this joyful but sometimes painful season. We want home for the holidays to look like it does on TV, but the problem is that even if we are the lucky ones where everyone at home is well- adjusted, un- addicted, healthy, and never resentful, even if our homes are full of all the people we love and no one is missing, it will still never be what the made- for- TV movies want you to think it should be, because we are surrounded or not by real people, who hurt and annoy and disappoint us. 1
But even if we know that what we re seeing is make- believe, these images of perfect homes and families stir up something real in us: they stir up in us real, God- given desires, real longings for community and relationship and a yearning for deep, lasting peace. Those real, God- given desires are what the author of Isaiah is referring to in today s text, too. The prophet paints a picture he sees the word from God instead of hearing it. He announces this not as a scolding lecture, but an invitational dream. It reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr. s I have a dream speech, the most famous lines of which are not a lecture about how to achieve racial reconciliation, but the painting of a dream, some of it even a quote from this same prophet, that one day every valley shall be exalted and every hill made low, the rough places made plain and the crooked places straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. 1 Here, Isaiah dreams a dream of a day when the Lord s mountain will be above all other mountains, and nations will stream to God like rivers in order to be taught be the Lord. God will arbitrate between the peoples, ending iniquity and injustice, so that the people themselves will beat their swords into plowshares, turning resources that take lives into resources that sustain lives, transforming tools of war into tools of community, converting violence into nourishment for us and the earth. I imagine that in Isaiah s day, people heard this vision and felt something stir deep within, because it touched the very depths of their longings for relationship, community, and abiding peace; but they probably thought, it s not possible, not in this life. We ve seen too much. We know ourselves too well. We will never beat our swords into plowshares. It s a nice idea, all nations streaming toward the mountain of God, but it ll never happen. 1 Isaiah 40:4-5. 2
I wasn t alive when King painted his dream before 250,000 supporters on the Washington mall, but I imagine, even as their hearts were stirred, many had the same response: It ll never happen: blacks and whites living together in harmony here, in this land, former slaves and former slave- owners. It s a nice idea, but it s not possible, not in this life. And today, when we are enduring war after war around the globe, so much war and such long wars that war is hardly even in the news anymore, when the response to almost any level of conflict seems to be violence, when we have come so far in terms of reconciliation but still have so far to go; when unarmed black men are losing their lives in the street because white men think they look menacing, and the justice system does nothing for them, causing widespread anger and deep wounds to millions of people; we may very well hear this text and, while there s a stirring deep in our hearts, touching our longing for abiding peace, we think, Maybe in the next life, but certainly not in this one. It s a nice idea, this peace, this nations being arbitrated by the justice of God and no longer training for war, but it s just not possible. If you look back a chapter, at the first chapter of Isaiah, it s not such a pretty picture. Isaiah says that Israel is a rebellious nation, full of sin and corruption, woundedness and desolation, violence and bribery, trampling on the poor. It sounds a lot like what we re going through now, in our own day, though I m sure we could add more to the list: things like racial profiling, economic oppression, a level of selfishness that puts concern for personal property above others lives. And yet, Isaiah went straight from this honest, critical account of the violence and greed of the people of Israel to this vision of peace, with enemies streaming toward God side- by- side, to hear the Lord s instruction and learn the ways of peace. He went straight from that damning critique to this beautiful dream of peace. And if Isaiah could do it, why can t we? 3
This idea of the people streaming like rivers toward the mountain of God is a pastor s dream. Certainly no clergy I know has ever had to deal with people streaming like rivers to hear the instruction of the Lord: people don t stream to church, we have to do everything in our power to convince them that one hour on Sunday morning is worth their time, that it s more worth it than the newspaper or Starbucks or football on TV or the kids soccer games or basketball tournaments or extending that vacation by a day. We don t stream toward holiness we don t stream toward peace in real life, because it s hard. Discipleship is hard work. Fighting against our own self- centeredness to learn the compassion of Christ is hard work. Being a peacemaker in an age of war is hard work. It s easier just to say, Well, if you can t beat em, join em and jump in with the masses who ve given up on peace and are focused now on protecting themselves at whatever cost. But here s where we can learn something from our children. Perhaps our lives have been so tainted by disappointment and sorrow, cynicism and doubt, that we ve given up on the impossible, but they haven t. Spend some time with small children this season, and ask them what they believe: they believe that a generous old man in a red suit can deliver gifts to every household in the world in just a few hours, popping down chimneys and taking time for milk and cookies in each one. They believe that those family gatherings do look just like the ones on TV, where the moms are all beautiful and the dads strong, the food is perfect and the house roomy and warm. They believe it just might snow on Christmas, and that we can all build snowmen together, who might come alive and dance and sing. They believe in love and hope, peace and goodwill. They believe in us. It s easier to sing Jingle Bells with the masses at the mall than to whisper O Come, O Come, Emmanuel in our hearts. It s easier to pin our hopes on perfect homes for Christmas than on nations streaming to the mountain of God side by side, living in a peace so profound that swords can all be beaten into farm tools. But Christmas comes not to awaken nostalgia in us, so that we ll do 4
everything we can to make our homes look like those commercials on TV; Christmas comes to awaken our hearts to the ways of God, calling us to conversion and setting us free to be agents of God in the world to which Christ came. 2 Christmas is about the impossible actually happening: a young girl, a virgin, being visited by an angel and told she will bear the Christ- child, and her response being yes; this young girl and her young husband giving birth to the savior of the world in a stable in Bethlehem, tended not by doctors and technology but by horse manure and hay; about the God of the universe wrapping himself in the body of a child, loving us so much that he came as close to us as we are to each other right now. When it comes right down to it, we already believe in the impossible, and those dreams we have now shape the days we are living. Our visions create the future, take us in new directions. Our beliefs determine our lives. So what if we dreamed the dream of peace ourselves, and started to believe it s possible? As we come to the table this morning, all people together black and white, native and foreigner, young and old, married and single and divorced, parents and grandparents and children and childless, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican all streaming forward toward the nourishment of God, it s time to take up the dream, to believe in the impossible, to pay attention to that longing for peace, to hear Isaiah s call that there exists a peace so profound that implements of death can be converted to tools that give life. These are the things our hearts truly desire, more than gifts and feasts, more than picture- perfect snowy scenes of Santa and his reindeer: that God has come and is coming, that light has overcome the darkness, that some day, all people will stream toward the holy mountain together. If we believe it s possible, if we live toward the dream, then the dream lives in us, and the impossible becomes reality. 2 Fred Gaiser, Commentary on Isaiah 2:1-5, posted at www.workingpreacher.org 12/2/2007; accessed 12/4/2014. Adapted. 5
Come, my friends, let us walk in the light of the Lord. Let us dream the dream of peace. Will you pray with me? O come, O come, Emmanuel, and bless each place your people dwell. Melt every weapon crafted for war, bring peace upon the earth forever more. We rejoice, rejoice! We take heart and do not fear, for we know that God s chosen one, Emmanuel, draws near. Awaken in us the dream, O God, the dream that lives deep within our hearts, the dream of peace. Help us to believe, so that we will live it even today. Amen. Rev. Elizabeth Ingram Schindler Faith United Methodist Church Issaquah, WA December 7, 2014 6