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For Every Thing There Is a Season
Isaiah 2: 1-5
Matthew 24: 36-44
We are reminded by the first candle on the wreath that today is the
first Sunday in Advent. A well known passage from Ecclesiastes makes the
observation that “for everything there is a season, and a time for ev=
ery
matter under heaven,” and today is not only the time to begin another
Advent season, but also another year in the liturgical calendar of the chur=
ch.
Some of us think of Advent as little more than a warm-up time for
Christmas. As shopping malls recycle familiar carols --- unfortunately more
often than they do fresh air --- many who inhabit church pews on a Sunday
morning wonder why we don’t simply jump into the ‘spirit of the
holiday season.’ What’s wrong, after all, with singing “g=
lory
to the newborn king” even if he’s not quite here yet? I saw man=
y of
you here last night to hear Western Michigan University’s wonderful
holiday concert. Christmas is a season always associated with glorious musi=
c,
and surely we know the traditional carols better than we do the Advent hymn=
s,
so why not.
Today’s scripture readings remind us why not. . . . Advent is=
a
season of preparation, but not just for Christmas --- especially not the ki=
nd
of Christmas practiced by a culture that worships consumerism more than a b=
aby
in a manger. --- a baby who will grow up to teach and live values which cla=
sh
with the worship of things, especially money!
Advent is intended to prepare our hearts and minds to become attent=
ive
to the many ways in which God came into the world, comes into the world and
will come into the world. While Christians surely look to that first Christ=
mas
as the pre-eminent time of God’s entrance onto the stage of human
affairs, the bible speaks of many other appearances and the departing words=
of
Jesus to his disciples promised many more.
At the start of a new church year the lectionary readings turn our
attention to the future (God promises;) the ‘kingdom come’ for
which we pray each week; a future which has already begun; a future in which
God’s people are called to live as if it’s already here! Christ=
mas
is the most important event of fulfilling that promise, but Christmas exhau=
sts
neither the means nor the meaning of God’s comings into the world and=
of
the future reign of God proclaimed in scripture.
Today’s Gospel makes no reference to that coming of Jesus whi=
ch
the angels announced to shepherds and the wise men discovered by a star. It
speaks, instead, of his coming to humankind in other ways, long after the
animals in that Bethlehem stable had reclaimed the space for themselves.
Today’s lesson comes from Matthew’s apocalyptic material ---
meaning references to the future, to the “end times,” and it
counsels followers of Jesus how to faithfully respond to ‘signs’
that the culmination of human history is drawing nigh.
The reading from Isaiah prophesies a future in which the peoples of=
the
world have acknowledged their need of God and have made a spiritual pilgrim=
age
to learn of God’s ways and transform their former ways. From far and =
near
they come to receive such ethical instruction as will enable the nations to
live in peace with one another, their implements of death reshaped into too=
ls
for the provision of life.
It’s one of the best-known texts in all of Hebrew scripture.
Isaiah tells us that human history is heading in a particular direction, an=
d he
tells us how it’s going to get there. Despite evidence to the contrary -=
-- and
there’s plenty of that in our daily news --- Isaiah proclaims that Go=
d is
ultimately in charge and wills nations to learn how to settle their differe=
nces
peacefully and live in just relationships with one another. To that end, God
himself promises to lend her eternal wisdom to human affairs as judge and
mediator.
The Isaiah passage begins with the assertion that “in days to
come” certain new realities will come to pass. It doesn’t prese=
nt a
particular time frame because these things will happen in God’s good =
time
--- a theme picked up again in today’s gospel lesson.
Mountains are locations where gods are encountered. The home of Zeu=
s on
Mt. Olympus is noted in Greek mythology. Moses receiving the “Ten
Commandments” on Mt. Sinai is but one example from the Judeo-Christian
faith. Old Testament scholars point out that one of the names by which God =
was
known to the ancient Hebrews was EL SHADDAY --- god of the mountain(s). Hen=
ce
the reference in Isaiah to God’s house being on the highest of mounta=
ins,
a God above other gods to whom the nations will stream to be taught GodR=
17;s
ways and learn to walk in his paths.
Implied in Isaiah’s prophecy is judgment that the ways of this
world are not God’s ways and only through instruction from the God who loves us all, can our hear=
ts and
minds envision the new realty --- God’s plans for how we are to live =
in
peace and harmony with others of God’s children.
In his recent book The Gospel According to the Beatles, Steve Turner
observes that if the Beatles had a gospel, it presupposes that they believed
that something was wrong with the world. You don’t go around dispensi=
ng
‘good news’ if you think everything’s fine. The Christian
gospel, he goes on to say, was meant to be good news to people who were
enslaved to wrong desires and heading for hell. It offered them peace (with
God), freedom (from guilt) and forgiveness (for sin). It also gave them the
possibility of partaking in the building of the kingdom of heaven, now and =
on
into eternity.
Turner’s understanding of the Christian gospel is ‘right
on.’ But there’s something else the author says about ‘the
gospel according to the Beatle’s’ that gives insight as to how =
we
can, indeed, partake in the future which God promises. We’re familiar
with Ghandi’s wisdom about ‘be[ing] the change we wish to see in
the world.’ Surely, wor=
ds
alone will not transform the world. We must immerse ourselves in being and
living the prophetic vision in order to be useful in bringing about its
fruition.
Turner suggests an analogy to that in the process by which the music
and message that influenced the values of a whole generation of young people
were closely intertwined: Unlike the Bible or the Qur’an, he says, the
words of the Beatles arrived embedded in music, and you couldn’t arri=
ve
at the truth of a Beatles song by stripping the lyric from its backing track
and hoping it would speak to you as it lay supine on the page. What a Beatl=
es
song meant could only be experienced by immersion in the sound --- the words
conversing with the music . . . There was a sense in which the Beatles did
“take you down,” and the only way to understand the songs was to
inhabit the space they created. The truth had to be felt.
Surely we must inhabit the space created by Isaiah’s prophetic
vision if we are to feel and live its truth.
One of the ‘great ends’ of the Church is to “exhi=
bit
the Kingdom of God to the world.” Just talking about it isn’t
enough. The fullness of God’s reign is not yet accomplished, but we a=
re
to live our lives as if it were. And when we do that faithfully, the Kingdom
becomes present --- however imperfectly --- wherever that happens.
It’s significant that the most important characteristic of
God’s coming Kingdom, according to Isaiah, is that nations will learn=
to
live in peace with one another and solve their differences equitably. The
resources of the earth God gave us will no longer be used for weapons of war
that destroy God’s creation, but will be used to make tools that sust=
ain
life.
Advent is the season in which we are especially reminded to be on w=
atch
for the ways and the times in which God enters our world. It is a time when=
we
are called to be alert for signs of where the seeds of God’s coming
Kingdom are being planted, that we might respond faithfully in nurturing th=
ose
seeds.
As significant as Isaiah’s proclamation that the reign of God=
in
our hearts and minds --- and through us, the world --- will result in natio=
ns
beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks;
nations no longer lifting up sword against nation or learning war anymore -=
--
just as significant is our failure, the failure of the church, to reflect in
our lives and in our common life the clearly war-free character of God̵=
7;s
Kingdom, both future and present. Peace is not a Republican or Democratic
issue. Peace is not a conservative or liberal issue. Peace is an issue of t=
hat
Kingdom in which God’s people are called to live.
The relationship of Christians to war and violence has never been an
easy thing for us to handle despite prophetic words like Isaiah’s;
despite the warning Jesus gives us that ‘those who live by the sword =
will
perish by the sword;’ despite the tears our Lord shed over Jerusalem
because they would not learn the ways of peace, and hence would be
destroyed.
The Presbyterian Church affirms that Christians are ‘called t=
o be
peacemakers,’ but there’s no agreement across our denomination =
as
to what that means. How do we witness to our personal and collective
relationship to that One whom prophets proclaimed Prince of Peace? How does=
---
how can --- the Church exhibit to the world a Kingdom in which ‘nation
shall not lift up sword against nation’ and the resources of war are
used, instead, for those things which enable us to live together with one
another as God intended?
Too often we fail to live the presence of that promised Kingdom. Sa=
dly,
the world sees the Church as just another hypocritical human organization w=
hose
deeds do not match its words. What we most often exhibit to the world is li=
ttle
different from what it gets from others when it comes to justifying and
participating in the systematic destruction of Creation.
Yet who of us can hear Isaiah’s prophecy and not be touched by
the power of expectation. Who of us can hear these poetic and powerful words
and not have hope rekindled in our hearts for the peace of which they speak?
Surely we miss the Kingdom’s goal as well as our opportunity to parta=
ke
in its realization if we give our blessing --- and our sons and daughters -=
--
to preserving a world controlled by the violence of war.
In this season of preparation for God’s comings into the affa=
irs
of humankind, let us be watchful for ways and times in which God can use us=
as
peacemakers. Let us not be like those in the Gospel today who just
‘didn’t get it’ --- the unconcerned folks who watched Noah
building an ark; the man in t=
he
field and the woman grinding meal who were so caught up in their worldly
routines that they couldn’t ‘receive’ the Good News. Bibl=
ical
scholars point out that the Greek word translated “taken” --- a=
s in
“one will be taken, one will be left” --- is elsewhere more
commonly rendered “receive.” In those unexpected moments when t=
he
Kingdom of God was present for them and in those unanticipated times when G=
od
was depending on them to be the presence of the Kingdom to others, some
‘received’ the message and responded; others were simply tuned =
out
and missed what was going on. Let us be alert so as to not miss God’s
coming!