Isaiah 11:1-9
December 8, 2019
The peace of
Christ be with you. And also with you.
I’m sure there are worse things for
an introvert to endure than the passing of the peace, but when you are
confronted with it, it’s hard to imagine what that worse thing could be. Believe
it or not, I am an introvert by nature, so when I am passing the peace in the
pew it is a little challenging for me. I don’t mind doing it, but I always seem
to be that person who gets stuck with no one to pass the peace to while
everyone around me is passing the peace to someone else. I’m this person stand
with my hand out and turn around looking for another hand.
Another problem with passing the
peace in church is that some people seem to think that it is just one more opportunity
to catch up with folks they haven’t talked to in a while. They rush through the
words,
“The peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you,”
Then move right into whatever it is
they want to say to the person they are “passing the peace to”
“You will never guess who I saw at
the grocery store this week…”
Because of these two reasons, I
understand why a lot of churches opt not to have the passing of the peace in
worship. It makes people uncomfortable. People get to talking, and it takes too
long. It just adds time into the service when other things could be happening.
Besides, if we take too long in worship, all the other churches will get to the
good lunch spots before we do. Gotta get to the restaurant before the Methodists
do! I’m kidding, but you know there’s a little bit of truth to that.
But here is what the Book of Order
says about passing the peace.
“In sharing the peace of Christ, we
express the reconciliation, unity, and love that come only from God, and we
open ourselves to the power of God’s love to heal our brokenness and make us
agents of that love in the world.”
Repeat
I suspect that another reason why churches
hesitate to include the passing of the peace in worship is because it makes us
uncomfortable in more ways than one. When we pass the peace we might have to
pass the peace to a person we’re angry with, or with someone we don’t like. We
might have to offer God’s peace to someone we don’t approve of, and worse, we
might have to receive that peace back. I think that is at the heart of our
discomfort. Passing the peace, if we take it seriously, if we heed what the
Book of Order is saying, means that we might be changed in the process. And
change is scary. Change is a struggle. Change is uncomfortable.
Yet the passing of the peace is not about
keeping us comfortable. We pass the peace of Christ not because we love
everybody around us, or because we are perfect people who feel perfectly
peaceful all the time. We pass the peace of Christ because when we do, we
acknowledge that we are all sinners who have been forgiven, and we declare that
God loves us. And because we are forgiven and because we are loved, and because
we cannot do any of that without God, we pass the peace to others as our
response to God. Since God has forgiven us, we now choose to forgive others. We
now choose to be agents of God’s love in the world; even though it’s hard and
challenging and might mean that we must pass the peace to someone we would
rather not. When we pass the peace, we declare that the world as it is, is not
the world it will be when God’s kingdom is complete in our midst.
When we pass the peace, when we are
sincere about it and earnest about it, we contribute to the peaceable kingdom.
Really and truly I am not telling you all
of this to advocate that we begin to include the passing of the peace in
worship every Sunday. Maybe I am, but we’ll see. However, it is Isaiah’s vision
of the peaceable kingdom that is before us today. And I see that as a call to take
peace, to take the passing of the peace, seriously.
In Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom, what we
think of as the natural order is overturned and upside-downed. What should be
dead has life. Those who should be enemies are friends. A green shoot of life
grows from a lifeless dead stump. Predator and prey are no longer caught in the
unceasing dynamic of hunter and hunted. And in the midst of all this, a child
puts its hand on the adder’s den. A little child leads predator and prey
together.
The shoot that springs forth from the dead
stump is a new king, a new ruler. Scholars assert that the stump of Jesse is
the Davidic line. David, after all, is a part of Jesse’s family tree. But is
this stump of Jesse a stump because Israel and Judah fell and the people were
exiled? Is it a stump because David failed? Both statements are probably true;
it is both and. The former monarchy of Israel ended and it ended badly. It was
like a tall tree that was cut down, with only a sad, lifeless stump left in its
place.
But look, do you see it? Do you see the
shoot, the green shoot growing from that stump? There is still life there! And
it is new life. It is a new king. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on this new
king. The Spirit of the Lord will give him wisdom and counsel. The Spirit of
the Lord will give him knowledge, and his fear will be the fear of the Lord.
This new king will judge with equity and righteousness for the poor and the
meek of the world. Yes, there will be judgment. The wicked shall be struck down
with just a breath from this new king. Maybe this is a literal striking down,
or maybe it is like the judgment that Matthew’s gospel speaks of – a judgment
that roots out the wicked in each of us for new life to take root and grow. That
judgment makes way for new life, for true peace.
With this new king will come a new
kingdom. What we think of as natural order will be no more. What we think of as
natural enemies will be unnatural. Predators will no longer seek prey as a
nutritious meal but instead will lie down with them as companions. What was
dangerous and deadly will be tamed and friendly. And the one that is most
vulnerable, most in need of protection – a child – will not only live safely in
their midst but will lead them.
This is the peaceable kingdom that
Isaiah’s vision portrays. This is the image of God’s world as it should be. As
it should be. But we all know that it is not that way yet.
I read in a commentary about Edward Hicks.
He was a nineteenth century Quaker artist and minister. He painted this picture
of the peaceable kingdom at least 62 times. If you google the words “peaceable
kingdom” and hit images, his paintings will appear. In his renderings, he drew
all of the animals and the child from Isaiah’s vision. And in the background,
he also included Quakers and Native Americans conversing peacefully together.
But as this commentary pointed out, and as his paintings show, he became more
and more frustrated and discouraged by the conflicts of his time, especially
the conflicts that occurred in his own community.
His frustration was apparent in the
predators he painted. They became more deadly, more fearsome, more long of
tooth and sharp of claw. Isaiah’s vision shows us God’s world as it should be,
as we hope it will be, but it is not that way yet. There are still plenty of predators
out there, and they are not just the animals who hunt. There are predators who
exploit and harm and kill the least of these. There are predators who show no
signs of transformation or even just retracting their claws. It seems to me that
even though in this vision the natural order of the world is turned on its
head, it is still alive and well in the world around us. And as for the little
child leading; we live in a world where there is no guarantee that our children
are safe … from anything. Where is this peaceable kingdom we ask? When will it
become our reality? Will it become our reality?
Maybe that’s why we need the passing of
the peace. Maybe we need not only its ritual, but its reminder. What might the
world look like if we took the passing of the peace out beyond these doors?
What would the world be like if we passed the peace of Christ to every person
that we meet? What would we be like if we remembered that the passing of the
peace is not just a formal way to say hello to our neighbors, but is a vivid
and real symbol that we know we are sinners who have been forgiven. We know
that we are forgiven sinners who are forgiven because God loves us. We know
that our response to God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s grace is to share that
love, that mercy, that grace with others.
What would the world look like if we
really passed the peace of Christ to all of God’s children? Maybe when we do,
the peaceable kingdom ; will come a little closer, and the order of the world
we think of as natural will be unnatural. Maybe when we pass the peace of
Christ to all of God’s children, wolf and lamb will really live with one
another; leopard will lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion and the
fatling will be together, and a little child, a small and vulnerable child,
will lead them.
The peace of Christ be with you. And also
with you.
Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”
Amen.
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