Sermon – St. Mary’s
2 Advent - December 9, 2007
Isaiah 11:1-10
Our first reading today comes from the book of Isaiah. That first reading, however, is not the only place we hear Isaiah this morning. We hear snippets of the book in our Epistle and Gospel readings. You might remember that our first reading last week also came from the book of Isaiah. And just to warn you, for the rest of Advent, the first reading each week will come from Isaiah and the Gospels each week will quote Isaiah. Of the twelve readings we hear in this Advent season, eight of them are either from Isaiah or reference Isaiah. And hopefully you won’t be too tired of the book by then because we will continue to hear Isaiah every single Sunday after that until February.
The book of Isaiah was written at a time of change and instability, a time of distress and upheaval. Israel was at war during much of this time. The Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel fought each other and others. With each war, the Israelites lost more and more of their autonomy to rule themselves as other nations gained more and more power over them. Ultimately, the Israelites lost Jerusalem and went into exile for about 50 years. Other changes were also taking place at this time. Some farmers started growing extra crops, which led to the accumulation of wealth for the more successful ones. An improving economy certainly has its positives, but the economic changes were not equitable and as the gap between the rich and poor increased, so did oppression against the poor. And as Israel lost in war and as the people fell under the rule of other nations who worshipped other gods, the people of Israel forgot about the Lord and strayed to these other gods. Many Israelites had forgotten about the great things that the Lord had done for them in the past - their freedom from slavery in Egypt, the manna to sustain them for 40 years in the wilderness, and their deliverance into the Promised Land. Instead of having the long view of history, they were only able to focus on the present troubles, and they concluded that their God was not sufficient and that the gods of their new rulers must be worthy of worship since they had won in the most recent battles.
The
book of Isaiah deals with this environment of war, political failure, economic
oppression, and a crisis of faith in the Lord.
Isaiah comes about with a myriad of responses to this situation.
One of his responses is to offer warnings against the bad decisions of
the people of Israel. And when
those are ignored, he laments. But
he also offers another response, a positive response.
In the midst of the present troubles, Isaiah moves back to that long view
of history by offering a vision of the future.
He uses his imagination to show an alternative that is marked by shalom,
which is Hebrew for peace and wholeness. And
Isaiah uses his imagination – a holy imagination - to start imagining what
this future could look like, a future marked by shalom.
Many of the readings that we hear throughout Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are those sections of Isaiah that offer this holy imagination. Our reading today is one such attempt. In today’s passage, Isaiah offers an image radically different than the one that the people were used to. In contrast to the image of violence and failure and oppression that existed all around the people, Isaiah offers them the image of a wolf living with a lamb, a leopard lying down with a kid, and a calf, lion and fatling all together with a little child leading them. These are images of wholeness, reconciliation, and restoration. The wild animals are back with the domestic animals, and the carnivores are no longer eating their prey. And the most defenseless child is in charge. In this example of holy imagination, barriers have been broken down and the animal kingdom is whole again, living in shalom – wholeness and peace. The image from Isaiah is reversing the image of the Fall from Genesis. The image returns to the wholeness of creation as originally envisioned by God in Genesis 1, creation as wholly good. That reversal is most obvious several verses later where Isaiah imagines the child getting along with the asp and the adder, reversing that negative relationship between snakes and children from Genesis 3. This image stands in marked contrast to the usual images that the people were encountering of despair and hopelessness. In a world broken by violence, poverty, oppression, and despair, Isaiah offers an image of wholeness, restoration, and reconciliation to the people.
If we look around today, we can easily see that this image of the leopard lying down with the kid remains, at least, partially unfulfilled. We continue to live in a world full of change and instability, distress and upheaval. We continue to live in a world full of brokenness. Nationally and internationally, war continues to rage on, taking countless lives, while the powerless continue to be oppressed by the powerful. Personally, the lives of many of us or those close to us are affected by loss and grief, pain and hurt, despair and hopelessness. We live in a world that still does not fully experience shalom - wholeness and peace – this that Isaiah imagines, which only makes Isaiah’s image as important as ever.
We are shaped in the present by our expectations and hopes for the future. This image of Isaiah can encourage us to use our own holy imagination to work towards the realization of this image. In what ways do we see this image actually coming true? In what ways are we working to make this imagine come true? Engaging in holy imagination like Isaiah offers us this morning can help us move toward shalom and also to see in what ways God is already bringing shalom about in this world.
The example that most vividly exemplifies this holy imagination for me happened a few years ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As you most likely remember, the Hurricane hit in 2005, killing over a thousand people and displacing countless more. Images of death and destruction bombarded us by television and newspaper. For the first few weeks following the storm, the front page of the New York Times website had a seemingly dedicated spot to the latest image of the Gulf Coasts’ devastation. One Sunday morning, the picture was of a church, which had been clearly demolished by the winds and rain of the Hurricane. Only a small remnant of the frame remained, less than a skeleton of what had once stood there. The devastation was obvious. However, in front of the site of this destruction, there stood an Episcopal priest wearing his finest white and green vestments, standing next to a small table, upon which sat the bread and the wine. The contrast in this image between the destruction in the background and the Holy Eucharist in the foreground exemplifies this holy imagination that Isaiah is inviting us into. In the midst of death and destruction, for those that were needy and in distress, we find the image of the Eucharistic Feast - the Bread and the Wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, the presence of God there with them. In that Eucharist, those whose lives had been violently shaken and uprooted by the hurricane imagined a different world – a world not of pain and destruction, but of wholeness and peace.
Every week, we engage in this same holy imagination when we come together to celebrate the Eucharist. In the midst of the change and instability, the death and destruction, the violence and oppression, the pain and sorrow, which are around and within us, we gather together and have the opportunity to imagine things a bit differently, at least for a brief moment. We imagine and we experience this world of shalom – of wholeness and peace – when we take the body and blood of Christ into our own body and blood. And then we can go back out into the broken world, a people changed by this holy imagination, a people changed by taking Christ’s body into our body, in order to try and bring about that image of shalom Isaiah offers us in our reading today and we experience whenever we partake of the Holy Eucharist.