This morning’s Isaiah
reading seems future oriented. The Prophet Isaiah speaks of the time “in days
to come.” Many of us would like to see Isaiah’s vision sooner rather than
later. We’re impatient people, most of us. I’m not sure that’ always a good
thing though. Some of us are so impatient for the next bargain we don’t want
retail employees to have a day off for Thanksgiving. Black Friday has become
“black un-thanksgiving” for many retail employees.
Isaiah longs for a time when people will beat
their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Isaiah longs
for a time when nation shall not lift sword against nation and neither shall
anyone learn war any more. If you are old enough to remember the 1960s you may
remember our Isaiah reading this morning as a popular folk song known as either
“Down by the Riverside or “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.”(I sang the
following.)
I’m
gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down
by the riverside
Down
by the riverside
Down
by the riverside
I
ain’t gonna study war no more
Ain’t
gonna study war no more
Ain’t
gonna study war no more
I
ain’t gonna study war no more
The song has more verses than were sung
in most popular version. And the song’s message is about casting off aggression
and negativity at the side of the river before crossing it. Baptism and ascending
to heaven are part of some of the lesser-known verses. And, as in many
African-American spirituals, the biblical images allude to escape from
oppression and slavery.
Most importantly, though, when we
look at both Isaiah’s vision and the words of the song, we see that instead of
being simply future oriented, the texts are also now oriented. These are texts that talk about the future and a past
that come together in God’s time, the “not-quite-yet” and the “already-here.”
It’s easy to
get discouraged about a text like Isaiah’s. “…(T)hey shall 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.”[1]
Yet in the midst of our skepticism, if we are honest, most of us still feel our
hearts leap with joy at these words. Why would our hearts do this when the
overwhelming weight of what we know about the world presses in on us?
I believe it is
because without always knowing it consciously, our hearts have absorbed the
idea that while God has not brought us to the second coming, signs of Jesus’
second coming are all around us.
Isaiah speaks
to this knowledge of ours, this knowledge of a world filled with justice and
mercy. A world of hope, rather than hate. A world that where God sees us and
knows us at our best.
Isaiah offers
us both a look at how it might be, and how it is. There is justice, not always,
not everywhere, but in bits and pieces and growing. There is some justice for
women, some justice for children, some justice for people of color, some
justice for animals and the earth today.
Imagine sending three young people to
build and to help, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to educate the
struggling and the poor, and to study war no more. You may think it is a dream,
but two young people in parishes I’ve served and one student from my seminary’s
junior class did just that. They joined the Young Adult Service Corps (YASC),
one of the best-kept secrets of the Episcopal Church. Two were teachers in
underserved areas of the world, and one worked in Appalachia teaching and
building and learning that there was much more in the world than the privileged
life he’d always known. These are swords into plowshares today.
I know a young woman who travels the
world planting trees in deforested areas. And I know another who lives in one
of the most dangerous war-torn countries in the world and works for peace:
justice for the earth and swords into plowshares today.
Several years ago, a young woman I
know put her feet on the path of legal citizenship. Her mother, fleeing
violence and oppression, brought her daughter here when she was barely walking.
There is justice and hope today.
Just this week, the Jesus House
provided Thanksgiving baskets for hundreds of people. The hungry are fed with
hope today.
Three years ago hope began in a
hospital unit where young mothers who have no one to love them are being partnered
by affluent mothers who help them love and care for their new babies: mercy
today.
And here, this month, Care Share will
bring Christmas gifts to at-risk children whose parents are struggling: mercy
and hope today.
Advent is a
time to look for the “not-quite-yet” so we may do that which we are called to
do. And Advent is a time to look at the “already-here” and to ask, “How can we
have more of that?” How can we use what God has given us to bring forth
justice, mercy, and hope?
Advent is the
time to look forward to the justice, mercy, and hope we will find in the manger
with the Christ Child. Yet Advent is also the time when we look forward to how
this justice, mercy, and hope will come to us in power and great glory with the
Risen Christ at his second coming. And Advent is the time of now: when justice,
mercy, and hope are with us today.
Advent is the time when we pray with
our hearts wide open as we say, “Holy God, show us how to bring your justice,
mercy, and hope into your world. Blessed Jesus, show us how to beat our swords
into plowshares. Holy Spirit, work in us and through us to offer others
justice, mercy, and hope. You are here, Lord Jesus, come among us today.”
AMEN.
The
Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2016
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