Sermon: preached 04/12/2016: on Isaiah 11.1-10 & Matthew 3.1-12Isaiah’s prophecy of a Peaceful Kingdom (Isaiah 11.1-10). I think ‘peace’ is a difficult concept for us to understand – as a child, a jokingly said ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some peace and quiet in this house’ by either my mum or dad, was instantly met with 5 small girls marching around the room singing, ‘I like PEAS, I like CARROTS’ and laughing hysterically at our witty pun. ‘Peace’ becomes synonymous with ‘quiet’ or ‘rest’ but that certainly isn’t what Isaiah meant. Isaiah was boldly proclaiming the impossible possibility. At the time, Jerusalem was destroyed and despairing and under the occupation of the Assyrians – their biggest enemy. As a people they were broken up and disjointed, they’d lost so many and so much, and each day, to live was a struggle. And Isaiah doesn’t sugar-coat that. He doesn’t ignore it and just tell them it will all be fine one day. Isaiah admits that the shoot will have to sprout forth from a stump – at a point where the royal line of David has been cut down, and nothing but a dry and lifeless stump remains. In other words, when there is no hope, because all has been destroyed. And yet, THEN a shoot shall sprout forth. There will be life again. And beauty shall come up and grow out of that new life.
For Isaiah, then, the word ‘peace’ – SHALOM – means more than just quiet, or tranquillity, or contentment, though it can mean those things; it also means wholeness, completeness; it means safety and soundness, it means welfare and unbroken, undamaged relationship, with other people, and with God. ‘Peace’ was a state that the people reading Isaiah’s book for the first time could only dream of – could possibly only even picture through the images he gave them. And if we are honest with ourselves, this completeness and wholeness and unbroken, undamaged relationship is something we but dream of too. None of us have to look too far or wait too long to find either others or ourselves in times of brokenness; moments when, though our lives are full of things to do, they feel empty; instances when we could not say that we have peace. That is why Jesus came into the world. In the midst of all the darkness, born into poverty, in a place he wasn’t welcome and had to flee for fear of his life, so that he could demonstrate to us how God’s light and love breaks in, even to the darkest of situations and times. He came as a shoot, breaking through into the world, with life and beauty, and righteousness and justice. Isaiah goes on; “...but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor”. Wherever the Kingdom of God is being built or proclaimed, it must not forget to also build and proclaim justice for the poor and exploited. For into situations of darkness and despair, there the shoot must grow, that brings light and life and love. An example of this. When I was 17, I went with my sister, and a church group on a trip to Israel and to the Palestinian Occupied Territories in the West Bank. We were there principally to visit and support Christians there, and show them that they were not forgotten. We visited schools and clinics and church groups, hearing their stories, bringing aid where we could and standing in solidarity with them. Being so young at the time, and having never been abroad anywhere before, and certainly having never seen such degrading treatment of an entire group of people; I was utterly overwhelmed by the darkness and – quite often – lack of hope there was there. People worn down by gradual and continuing occupation, just making one aspect of life harder, and then a next, and then another. When we asked one of the head teachers there, who was also a Priest, what we should tell people when we go back home, he said that we should tell them “they have brothers and sisters here who are suffering. Palestine is a land of sorrow; there are no resources, there’s no work and there’s just no money." Everything has been taken; everything simple made difficult. And yet, amid that darkness and despair were people who did – and continue to – break forth with the love of God, becoming a beacon of Christ’s light, in that darkness. One such man was the head teacher, K, in a school in Hebron which is run completely by Christians and attended almost completely by Muslim students. It is a normal school but also has some places for orphans to board there. When K was a young boy, he was an orphan who boarded at this school, and now he has gone through the whole education process and come full circle back to now being the head teacher. And he is an amazing man. He runs his whole school on the principle of treating every one of his students with the love of Christ. And the school becomes a lifeline for these children – it becomes somewhere they get treated like human beings, and more importantly, like human beings who were created and are loved and cherished, as every person should be. But he is up against a lot. He has to teach his children how to love. Because in their homes and in their streets there is a big military presence in Hebron, and there is a large amount of violence from Israeli settlers there. Just walking through the market streets of the town, we saw above the market a big metal grid stretching across the street to protect the Palestinians below from bricks and rubbish that the settlers throw down at them. It is not a nice place to live. And yet he goes into each day hoping that he can show those children what it means to love. What peace is. Something they have never known. When we asked K what he needed most from us; his immediate response was 'prayer'. He wanted us to pray for what he prays for: ‘for the children and for the whole area to have peace and love.’ He says that peace can only come from love. And that if they all have and treat people with the love of Jesus, then that is how they will get peace. A beautiful sentiment that this man is living out. Despite the difficulties presented in doing so. In that darkness – right within it – he has made the decision to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” as the reading about John the Baptist put it (Matthew 3.1-12). In Advent, we are getting ready for Christ to enter the world; remembering him coming down to meet us, demonstrating just how far God’s love goes for us. But he has already come; and there is still darkness, there is still not peace. But a shoot begins small. A shoot grows. And has been growing ever since. Every time someone loves as Christ does, another branch grows out from that tree, and fruit starts to blossom and bloom. And peace grows, until one day, enemies will lie down together, for there will be no fear, or war, or hatred, or destruction. And all will know the love of God. As Isaiah pictures in the vivid metaphors he uses in the second half of that reading. This whole period of Advent is about having an attitude of expectation, hopefulness and prayerful waiting, that all these things will one day come to be, knowing that we have a part to play in that. Advent calls us to be people who already have one foot in God’s new age, and who imagine ourselves as being already the change we want to see in the world. As his followers we are called, within that darkness, to make light – to be that demonstration continually to other people of how far God has already gone for them. To love, love and then still love, no matter how costly that might be, and love can indeed be costly as Jesus showed us on the cross. But ‘peace can only come from love’. That is why, to make ourselves ready for Christ, we must love as he does, breaking in with peace and light, amidst the darkest and most difficult of situations, with the fruits his love bears in us. John the Baptist cried out, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near ... Prepare the way of the Lord!” And many who truly did want to change their lives went down to the river and were baptised by him. In baptism we die – we go down, recognising the hopeless nature of ourselves and our utter powerlessness to love fully and make peace by ourselves. And then we are brought back up, washed clean, made new. As Jesus rose, so we rise, and this time, we have his power, and with his love, we can love powerfully and fully too. And this will grow into peace, and enemies will lie down together, for all will know the love of God. For true peace can only come from love.
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The sermon at church this morning began with a scenario we were to imagine; that we it was a dreary, cold, dismal December Monday morning - we were on the way to work, assumedly a job we didn't particularly enjoy, and everything was miserable. Then coming towards us was someone so full of joy - beaming from ear to ear, face lit up, a bounce in their step. As they reached us, they bounded right up to us, grabbed us and kissed us on each cheek "just for good measure". 'What do you have to be happy about?' came our response. The joyful person was confounded for a moment, before their smile returned and with a wink, they bounded off, with their joy intact.
The preacher went on to talk about how it is utterly confusing to us, when someone doesn't feel the same way as we do. But it is even more baffling when someone doesn't feel how their situation causes us to expect they would. The examples he gave, from the readings we had in the service, were Zephaniah, John the Baptist and Paul. All realised the dire situations they were in - Zephaniah often prophesying doom and gloom, John out in the wilderness with people coming to hear him whom he considered a "brood of vipers", and Paul locked away in prison awaiting death for much of the time in which he was writing. And yet all also talked of great hope and rejoicing, for one simple reason; they all knew the Lord was near. It reminded me of an experience I had in Palestinian Occupied Territory in October 2013. I was visiting a friend of the lady who'd organised the trip I was on - she'd prepared a wonderful meal for us and was telling us her story about when the Separation Wall suddenly grew up, along 3 of the 4 sides of her home, blocking off all trade to her little shop and generally just making her life a lot harder. In her shop, she was also selling handmade nativity sets like the one in the photo above, with a detachable separation wall down the middle. And as she was showing this to us, she said, "The wall is detachable, because we live in hope that one day it will come down." Her husband happened to be walking through the room at this moment and he quickly, and bluntly, retorted, "It will never come down." But his wife continued, "He says that because he follows the politics and laws around it all, and by that way - at the moment - there isn't a way it will come down. But we still have hope, because our hope is in a God who is bigger even than that wall." Sitting on a flat roof, surrounded by a thick concrete wall, even taller than where you are sat, on 3 out of 4 sides around you, with soldiers in towers on corners of it waving their guns, you realise how big this hope is. I have been overcome recently, experiencing the joy of Advent; the joy of building towards Christmas, this GREAT celebration recognising God with us. But for a lot of people, Christmas is especially difficult, precisely because this joy is perhaps harder to find. But we still have hope, because our hope is in a God who is bigger even than that wall. At this time of year especially, we should all find reason to renew our hope, even if there seems to be none, for God is with us and is bigger. And this should give us joy, even in sorrow - not necessarily smiles or a bounce in our step, but peaceful joy in response to God giving himself because of his great love for each one of us. Joy when there's sorrow; hope when there is none. |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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