"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