Dare to Hope

Isaiah 11:1-10

A couple of weeks ago, Faithe, our church secretary, and I had an experience that happens all too often.  It was about 11:30 or a quarter to 12 and as I was working on the sermon I heard the outer door to the office open and close, followed by the sound of Faithe carrying on a conversation with an unfamiliar male voice.  After overhearing a few bits and pieces of what was being said, I quickly and rightly deduced that Faithe was having her first encounter with a homeless person who had come in search of help.

After doing a skillful job of guiding him through the process of explaining to him the sort of help, as well as the sort of help that we would not be able to offer him, she asked if he would like something to eat.  At that point I heard the door open from the office into the Old Fellowship Hall and not being comfortable with leaving her alone with a stranger in another part of the building, I got up and followed them out the door and into the kitchen.

As soon as I walked into the room, I saw Faithe standing over by the cabinets that house our food pantry and standing next to her was a 40 something year old guy, who on closer inspection looks a whole lot older than what he really is.  He was wearing filthy clothes and his hair was long and greasy.  He had nearly no teeth and one eye that looks the wrong direction.  I immediately recognized him as a gentleman named Rick, someone who I had given a ride to a couple of months ago, when he stopped by the church before looking for a way home to the tent city that he lives in down behind Hodges Square in New London.  As I reintroduced myself to him, I quickly realized that his permanent state of drunkenness prevented him from remembering our previous meeting.  And a wave of sadness washed over me. 

As Faithe fixed him a meager lunch of soup, crackers and coffee, we listened as he told a disjointed and rambling story about how he had gotten work doing some dry wall, but wasn’t getting paid.  He talked about his friend who sometimes let him sleep on his floor, and his frustration with the circumstances of his life that were making things so difficult for him.  Eventually he asked if he could have a few dollars to give to his friend for gas, and so I handed him a ten dollar bill, and we watched him walk out the door, and across the parking lot into his very uncertain future.
After a few moments of silence, I looked at Faithe and said, “That is just heartbreaking.”    And we talked about the seemingly endless challenge that is presented by the needs in the world around us.  We had offered Rick warm soup, a couple of dollars, listening ears and a prayer, but where was that going to leave him that evening?  Right back in that cold tent behind Hodges Square, we imagine.  Rick represented for us that day, the sense of utter hopelessness that holds so many of our neighbors on planet earth in its grip.

Rick’s story also serves us this morning as a reminder of how far we have wandered from the Garden of Eden.  God created a perfect world full of anything and everything that we could ever need.  Food, water, companionship with one another and our creator, it was all there.  But then came disobedience, and the fall from grace.  And we’ve been falling, and falling, and falling ever since.  Every day, every moment, every year we have fallen further and further away from God’s perfect design, and deeper and deeper into a tangled web of greedy self interest, fighting, and alienation from one another and from God.

Yet here we stand two steps into Advent and our journey toward Christmas morning, and the angels’ declaration that in Christ there will be “Peace on Earth, and good will to all people.”   And as hard as it might be to believe, even here and now in this imperfect world filled with imperfect people and unimaginable inequity and suffering, this kingdom of peace that was established in a humble manger 2,000 years ago is alive and well around us.  At least, that is if we have what Jesus described as eyes to see and ears to hear.  So let’s take just a few moments on this second Sunday of Advent to look and listen for the kingdom of Christ. 

The first strains in the call to peace on earth were sent out by the prophet Isaiah in the passage which we read this morning, a scripture that stands as a divine declaration from God concerning his will for the creation.  It is a description of the world under the rule of Christ, and it provides for us some striking images of what that world looks like. 

The description comes from verses 6-10 of Isaiah’s 11th chapter, and it is an image captured in the famous work, “The Peaceable Kingdom” by Edward Hicks.  And it reads, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.  They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.  In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious.”

Isaiah’s words declare to the children of God, ancient and modern, that Jesus’ reign will be paradise regained.  In Christ,  the disorder of nature will be restored to its pristine harmony.  In Jesus Holy Kingdom, shalom, peace, a perfect balance of all things will return to the earth.

So, you might ask, where is this perfectly balanced and peaceful kingdom in our dirty, homeless, hungry and sin sick world?   The answer is both simple and perhaps a little surprising.  Jesus kingdom of peace, love, joy, and hope is right here, and right now.  The kingdom of God is all around us.  Just take a look.  The design of God, Jesus perfect kingdom is being declared right now in the holiday spirit of peace, love, and unbridled generosity that inspires us at this time of the year to a way of living that is in a word, Christlike.   As in “A Christmas Carol” when the greedy and cruel Ebeneezer Scrooge is transformed into a joyous and generous soul, so does the Christmas spirit invite us to be transformed into a closer approximation of the image of Christ. 

And that’s what Christmas is all about.  This is precisely what Isaiah was talking about when he wrote, “In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious.”  Isaiah 11:10  

You see, Jesus’ life and teachings stand up before us like an ensign, leading us forward, calling us on toward a time when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and they shall not hurt or destroy.   For the 4 weeks of Advent, and maybe even on a few days into the last week of the year or so, it seems that nearly every single person on the planet are seeking and following the loving and generous ways of Christ, and our dwellings are indeed glorious.

But the problem is, that more often than not, once the presents are unwrapped and the decorations have been put away for another year, so does the light of our Christmas spirit fade away and disappear into the night of our everyday world.  But you see, back to Ebeneezer Scrooge, the transformation that is engendered by the Christmas spirit is supposed to be permanent.   The thing that makes Dickens’ tale so powerful isn’t the fact that he treated the Cratchett family with such kindness on Christmas morning.  It is the assurance that we are given at the end of the story that he lived the rest of his life in this same generous and joyful fashion.

Like the conversation that we had last week about the way in which the light of Christ, when shone upon our lives, changes the way that we look at the world around us, Christmas, the Christ event, the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives and our world is supposed to change everything forever.  But there’s a danger involved in such a change.  For if we accept the challenge of Christmas living all the year round, then we have to be willing to dare to hope.  For the promise of Christmas is that all things are possible.  And if we dare to hope that all things are possible in Christ, then we have to be willing to accept the fact that such a hope requires our participation in the outworking of that kingdom.

And so, the change that begins in our hearts and our minds when we choose to believe in the power and possibility that was born with Christ can only reach fruition when we are willing to change not just our way of believing, but also our way of behaving.  You see, this peaceful kingdom of Christ comes alive when we life according to his example and his expectations of us.  The peaceable kingdom of Christ comes alive when we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  The kingdom is at hand when we give to those who ask of us, and expect nothing in return.   Jesus’ perfect kingdom is realized in our world when we truly and consistently do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  And miracle of Christmas is that when we are willing to believe and behave in the sprit of Christ, then we unleash a power and possibility that can truly and eternally change all of God’s creation from the bottom to the top.  And it all begins when we dare to hope.
Amen.