"The Peacable Kingdom" Advent 2A

Isaiah 11:1-10
Saint Matthew 11:2-11

Anybody who has a Facebook account know how divided, vitriolic, and confused our country has become.

A friend’s posts are the prime example of all of this. 

Scroll down his Facebook page and you will hear a diatribe by Tess Rafferty. I have no idea who she is but she bills herself as a writer and author.  Tess is clearly miffed.

She calls churches “white power meet-ups” and suggests that if you voted for Trump you are essentially a member of the KKK.

“If you voted for Trump,” she goes on, “you are a racist, homophobic, misogynist” from “a petty backward state full of small angry towns.”

She invites her Facebook followers to unfriend her if they voted for Senator Sanders, Governor Gary Johnson, or Dr. Jill Stein. Then she tells her real friends and family who didn’t vote the way she though they should that she is not going to “pretend this is all cool and pass them the plate of turkey
at the family dinner.” 1

I voted for Secretary Clinton but, I’m telling you, if I had made the mistake of inviting Ms Rafferty over for Thanksgiving, I would have found a host of Trump supporters to join our celebration just so Tess wouldn’t come.

I might even invite Jon Stewart who said on CBS This Morning.

“I thought Donald Trump disqualified himself at numerous points. But there is now this idea that anyone who voted for him is -- has to be defined by the worst of his rhetoric,” Stewart said. “Like, there are guys in my neighborhood that I love, that I respect, that I think have incredible qualities who are not afraid of Mexicans, and not afraid of Muslims, and not afraid of blacks. They’re afraid of their insurance premiums. In the liberal community, you hate this idea of creating people as a monolith. Don’t look as Muslims as a monolith. They are the individuals and it would be ignorance. But [seeing] everybody who voted for Trump as a racist is a  monolith. That hypocrisy is also real in our country.” 2

Lest they be any mistakes I know that “the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there were four hundred and thirty-seven incidents of intimidation between the election, on November 8th, and November 14th, targeting blacks and other people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women. One woman in Colorado told the S.P.L.C. that her twelve-year-old daughter was approached by a boy who said, “Now that Trump is President, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find.” At a school in Washington State, students chanted “build a wall” in a cafeteria. In Texas, someone saw graffiti at work: “no more illegals 1-20-17,” a reference to Inauguration Day.” 3

Both kinds of hatred - Ms. Rafferty’s and that outlined in The New Yorker article has to be condemned by every person of good will but we also must admit that people are confused.

Believe this or not, scrolling downward on the same Facebook page where my friend posted the diatribe is a video of Nathan Pacheco and David Archuleta singing, “The Prayer.”

I pray we'll find your light
And hold it in our hearts
When stars go out each night

Let this be our prayer
When shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
Give us faith so we'll be safe.

Clearly, like so many of us, my friend is confused and conflicted. Are we going to guided safely by God’s grace or are we going to hurl insults at each other as we pass the peas at holiday dinners?

We could go John the Baptist’s way and call each other a “Brood of snakes!” And wondering, “What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.” 4

Frankly, I wouldn’t go across the street to hear John the Baptist preach.  I am not found of being called a snake-in-the-grass. I don’t like it when it is suggested that my people are “a dime a dozen.” And I don’t like the idea of becoming toast when I don’t measure up.

Fortunately John the Baptist’s message is not the only one we have in Scripture.  There is another that I find far more promising, more appealing.

It is a time when God “will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.” 5

There really isn’t much difference between Isaiah’s first audience and us. 

Israel’s time in exile was indeed a time of suffering and sorrow but this time it was self-inflicted.  Babylon was the place they ended up because they had gotten things very badly wrong.  We might begin by admitting that we have done the same thing.

In their Babyalonian exile they felt estranged from God and each other and so do we.

A nation that longed to be united is more divided than ever.   The red states are more red and the blue states are more blue. 

Into this mess God comes with an alternate vision.  It is best depicted in the painting I love so much  “The Peaceable Kingdom” by Edward Hicks.  (See above) It is the vision Isaiah shares with us in today’s first reading depicting a time when God triumphs and peace reigns. 

It is the vision of a time when mortal enemies can dwell together.   The lion with the lamb.   The bear with the cow.  The leopard with the goat. All of God’s creatures dwelling in peace.

But that moment  can only come when we begin to see each other the way Jesus’ sees us.  Remember the old Sunday School hymn?  “Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.” Maybe if we saw the world through his eyes it would be a vastly different place?

The prophet Isaiah tells us that God, even in the midst of great turmoil, still  offers us comfort, and direction, and strength.

On our own we have about as much power to bring lion and lamb together as we do to bring peace to Tess Rafferty’s family gatherings or a joint meeting of Trump and Clinton supporters but we can begin by trying to see everyone as a beloved child of God.

If it can happen in Mississippi in the midst of the nastiness this  election brought who knows where the shoot may blossom next.

Hours after the Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church was destroyed by arsonists who spray painted  “Vote Trump” on the buildings walls the Reverend James Nichols Senior Minister of First Baptist Church - Greenville reached out to them.

The following Sunday both churches were using First Baptist’s building.

"If it had been our church that burned, somebody would have reached out to do the same for us," Nichols said.

What makes this newsworthy is that Hopewell M.B. Church is an all black congregation while First Baptist is mostly white.  Sadly, this is the norm in both southern and northern cities.  Congregations divide over racial, ethnic, or economic lines.

"They opened their doors to us to stay as long as we want and do whatever we need there," Clarence Green, Hopewell’s Pastor, said. "What God is doing -- it's not about race, creed or color.... The God we serve is neither black nor white, Jew nor gentile."

Some of the First Baptist people are worshiping with the Hopewell people and vice versa with neither pastor hearing anything negative.

"Forty years ago, it was unheard of for a black congregation and a white congregation to worship together," Green said. "A wall of hatred is being torn down through the spirit of love." 6

If we allow it to spread this spirit of God’s love just might lead us to the peaceable kingdom.

Let this be our prayer:
Lead us to the place,
Guide us with your grace
To a place where we'll be safe.  Amen. 

Sunday, December 6, 2016
______
1. Tess Rafferty, “Aftermath 2016.”  https://vimeo.com/191751334.

2. CBS News, “John Stewart and Donald Trump.” “CBS This Morning.”
January 17, 2016.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jon-stewart-the-daily-show-former-host-election-2016-donald-trump-republicans/

3. Alexis Okeowo, “Hate On Rise After Trump’s Election.” The New Yorker. November 17, 2016.

4. St. Matthew 3:7-10. (MSG) [MSG=The Message.}

5.  Isaiah 11:3-4.  (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version.

6. Emily Wagster Pettus, “Two Mississippi Churches Transcend Racial Barriers After Arson.”  Associated Press. November 23, 2016. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mississippi-churches-transcend-racial-barriers-arson-43734241

"You Can Be a Prepper, Too" Advent 1A

Matthew 24:36-44

I can always tell when a product is moving from the fringes to the mainstream when I see it advertized on television.

So it is that I have been seeing more and more commercials from The Wise Food Company who in the past have sold their products to two niche groups: Campers who plan to spend more than a week or so in the wilderness and those who are preparing for some kind of dire emergency where they will be cut off from food and water for a long period of time.

The second group are called “doomsday preppers.”

The late comedian John Pinette was spot on theologically when he said, “As far as the end of the world goes, I believe you’re prepped.  There is nothing you can do.”

“If I wake up, look out my window and say, ‘Oh, it’s doomsday.’  I turn off the light and I go back to bed.  There is nothing to be done.”

“But my relatives, they say things like ‘We got about six months of water, some ramen noodles, and we got a lot of firearms.’

And I think to myself, ‘It’s a good thing you got those guns because after six months of nothing but ramen noodles and water, you’re going to want to use them.”

“And, they think their cellar is in a different universe. 

They say, ‘You know we got a two foot thick door.’  And I look at them and think, ‘Well, I’m sure that  will stop the 30 mega-ton nuclear blast.  I’m sure nothing will happen to you.  You’ll be safe.  You won’t be doomed like the rest of us poor suckers ... scraping for a tomato.’”

The sad part Pinette’s comedy is that I have read about people who are preppers.  They are anxious preparing for the end of the world.  And that would be fine if they wouldn’t want me to be a prepper to too. 

But Panetta was right, and strangely enough Jesus seems to be in complete agreement with this 21st century stand-up comedian.

Jesus could not have been clearer on the subject.  “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

We don’t like the idea of “not knowing.” It makes us anxious.  We want to know what is going to happen to us.  We want to know not only what tomorrow may bring but the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. 

We want our lives to be neatly planned out so that we will know what to do.  We want to know how many bags of ramen noodles we should buy thinking that if we have a six months supply of those things in our cupboard we will be less anxious.  But we won’t be. 

Even if we somehow knew with absolute certainty that the end of the world would come three weeks from next Thursday we wouldn’t be less anxious.  If anything, we would be more anxious.  “Should I make the rounds of visiting my relatives or take the trip to New Zealand I always wanted to take?  Gee, I feel guilty if I didn’t go see the relatives one last time but, gosh, I always wanted to see New Zealand.” 

What to do?  Anxiety.

Listen! You know the exact day when Christmas is coming, don’t you?  Are you any less anxious about all the stuff you have to do between now and then?

Continue reading the words of Jesus, not those who want to add to those words with their predictions, and you’ll discover what you need to be doing. 

He describes some pretty mundane stuff.  People eating dinner and perhaps having a glass of wine afterwards. Couples  preparing to get married. Men and women working at home or in their business.  Jesus is talking about people who wait for his coming not by building bomb shelters but living out their lives.

And here is where even the next images Jesus uses which seem scary and cause great anxiety can even out if you know even just a little Greek. 

We have those very scary images that have given rise to the cottage industry of “preppers”. 

Two men in the field and suddenly one is gone and the other is left behind.  Two woman grinding at the mill, one is gone and the other is left.  And we think this is some kind of disappearing act.  One moment one person is there. The next moment, poof! Gone!

I almost never do this to you but I have to share with you the original Greek word that appears in this text.  That word for “taken” is paralambanomai  [para-lamb-ban-o-my]  and is doesn’t mean “to go up” or “to meet” but “to go along with.” 

The people who are with Jesus in then end are those who have decided to follow him now.  To put him above everything else in their lives now.

I couldn’t help but thinking about this one Thanksgiving morning when Lowell and I went downtown not to attend the Thanksgiving parade, or be the first ones at the Christkindlmarket in Daley Centre but to attend worship at The First United Methodist Church - Chicago Temple. 


It is located at Clark and Washington and so swirling all around us were people frozen solid from watching the parade, people searching stall after stall of items for just the right Christmas gift and inside the church people who were not raptured (a word that never appears in scripture) but enraptured by Jesus and who wanted to have their first feast of the day with him, gathered around his table before they gathered around their own. 
There were no more than a couple of hundred of us in that place while there were thousands outside.  And while we get no extra credit for this, we wanted to “go along with Jesus” before went along with the maddening crowds.

That is what separates us. 

There are some who will be too busy with and anxious over their businesses to go along with Jesus. 

There are some who are too busy toiling at and anxious over their daily grinds to go along with Jesus. 

There are even some who are sitting at home this morning as they have for weeks, months, or even years now, anxious over the state of the church and world and complaining over how bad things are but who still refuse to go along with Jesus and work for the betterment of his kingdom here, now, in this world, which is the only world we have to live in.

In his usual roundabout way Jesus is telling us that the questions about our future need not be answered because what matters is how we are going along with him now. 

Christ is breaking into our lives repeatedly.  Not just at some unexpected moment but repeatedly, every hour, every minute, every second, every nano-second, and our job is only to keep watching for those moments so we don’t miss them.

John Pinette was in pretty good company when he gave his doomsday advice, “I’d turn off the lights and go back to bed.” 

Martin Luther said with confidence: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” 

John Wesley when asked what he would do if he knew the world was going to end at midnight replied:  “Why, just as I intend to spend it now. I would preach this evening at Gloucester.  I would pray with my family as usual, retire to my room at 10 o’clock, commend myself to my heavenly Father and lie down to rest.”

What separates Luther, Wesley, Pinette, and I hope the rest of you from those who would anxiously stock pile water and noodles while building shelters with two foot doors is a trust that whatever is to come, whatever your future might hold, Christ will be a part of it.

That is what turns anxiety into hope, trauma into trust, and makes the future not something to dread but something to alertly anticipate knowing that you will be going along with Christ and Christ will be going along with you, every moment of time until the end of time. 

Now you're prepped.

Thanks for listening.