The Ancient Dream of Peace

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

December 2, 2007

Text: Isaiah 2: 1-5

Have you ever “seen” a message?

In strategic planning workshops, leaders would ask us imagine a preferred future for our churches. They would tell us to close our eyes and imagine we were five years into the future. We were asked to pretend that we were in a helicopter and, having X-Ray vision, could see through the roofs of the church buildings, and would be able to see everything that is going on with members during the week, either on or off the premises. We were invited to see a message, to visualize in our imaginations what would be happening.

When our babies are born, we may begin to visualize what they will be doing in 5, 10 or 15 years. We may even buy them musical instruments or footballs and jerseys.

Maybe you have been around when a church was born. You were just a collection of people at first. But then you began to see yourselves in 3 to 5 years. A new day, a new people, together, sharing life in Christ.

Isaiah was a prophet, one called and equipped by God to speak truth to God’s people. In chapter on, he has thundered about their foolishness and how they had better change their ways. For example, he says that “the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Isaiah tells them that they must seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Instead, the people “love bribes and run after gifts.”

Then, his mood changes.  He sees a new future for God’s people.

What he sees in his mind’s eye is a gift from God and a challenge to God’s people.

In this visual message, Isaiah sees  Mt Zion, in Jerusalem, where the temple is, where God’s presence dwells, being elevated, made taller----a kind of volcanic depression in reverse. It will be higher than any other mountain or hill around it. (It is naturally 100 feet lower than the Mt of Olives.)

Coming into Abilene, Texas from the East on Interstate 20, you can see Radford Auditorium on the campus of McMurry University, an institution of the United Methodist Church. There are three church colleges there, but no others have chapels visible from so far away. (I used to see this as a sign of Methodist superiority over the Baptist and Church of Christ colleges in Abilene!)

Residents of Jerusalem would have been thrilled to hear this vision of Isaiah. For them, their city was God’s city, the center of the earth--- and the Temple was its epicenter.

For some, the tower at UT may be the epicenter of the center of the earth!

If you were asked to imagine some such center of the earth, the earth’s navel, what would come to mind? Can you imagine this place being elevated, lifted up above all others, in all of its beauty?

As Isaiah sees in his mind’s eye this little hill being lifted up, he also sees people of all shades and dialects and religions, dressed in different kinds of clothing, people who have been distrustful strangers to each other. And he sees that they, all of them, are walking to the Mount like a river flows, steadily, irresistibly, and they are flowing like a river up hill!

It takes resolve and effort to walk up an incline. Going down hill may be difficult, too--- but gravity is with us.

The people of Jerusalem, imagining with Isaiah as he tells his vision, might have assumed that Isaiah was going to say that their enemies will at long last be conquered; and that they are being forced to climb to the city as prisoners of war, as conquered peoples fearfully and meekly offering gifts to their new masters.

But Isaiah sees no such thing! He sees all of these foreigners streaming in and he hears them saying to each other as they walk,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths!”

They are coming voluntarily, joyfully, expectantly. They are coming to learn.

Children, do you remember the first day you went to school? You may have been scared, but you may also have been eager to walk up to the school door, joining with friends and strangers, meeting your new teacher, seeing all of the pictures and letters and puzzles on the walls in your new room. Do you remember the distinctive smell of the school?

What Isaiah imagines for his friends is like this: the sight of children, youth and adults excited to be in God special place, in God’s special house.

Who is the teacher in this holy place? Isaiah tells them that the teacher is God himself! (God might have teacher-helpers, but God is the one behind the desk.)

Isaiah sees that God also has a special job. With all of these nations coming together, God will be their judge, the arbitrator, someone like the principal of a school.

It does not say that the people from many nations like each other. In fact, God knows they have been fighting each other, some of them, for centuries. But in this vision of a new time on this holy mountain, God will listen to the leaders of the nations and God will sort things out between them.

There will be no special treatment if you are from this nation or that; no special treatment if you are little or big, rich or poor. God will teach them how to live together and work out their disagreements peaceably. They will learn new ways to live and share, guided by God’s rules.

And then Isaiah sees a very strange thing indeed! He sees the people of warring nations laying down their spears and their swords and, taking up large hammers. And they start hammering their weapons into something else. They sweat profusely, for it is hard work. But they work like people inspired by a new, beautiful dream.

And what are they making? They are making their swords and spears, weapons made to defend themselves and attack their enemies, into farmer’s tools: plowshares and pruning hooks. They will use them to plow the fields and plant crops for food to eat; they will use hooks to prune the fruit trees so they will yield more fruit.

And in the school which God has established, they will not study war anymore. They shall not learn how to get what they want by violence; they shall work out their grievances through collaboration-----working together to make and keep peace.

Now let’s imagine that Isaiah has told this story one night around a campfire to friends from Jerusalem. There is a deep silence for a time when he finishes. The people look at the fire, as we are apt to do when we are imagining.

War, in all of its horror, has been with them all of their lives. They have been at the crossroads of nations like Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Egypt. Caught in the crossfire, their children had often been sold into slavery.  They have been tortured, executed by the thousands and starved out through sieges. Do they dare dream of a day when they could dwell securely, and when tribal leaders  and kings would actually meet and listen to each other, and work things out instead of beating their plowshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears? (See Joel 3:10!) Can God really bring this about?

Then Isaiah has one last word for them.

“O House of Jacob, come, let US walk in the light of the Lord.”

There is the gift of a vision, and there is a challenge to walk as God’s peaceable people.

About 500 years later, another prophet sees a message. It is after the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the days when followers of Christ were being treated with contempt by many and killed by many others. This prophet is a man named John, and he sees some truly spectacular.

It is a stunning vision of the gift of a new Jerusalem, radiant with jewels and gold. And the nations of the earth are again coming to the God’s city. But when John speaks of the temple, he says something surprising:

The gift of God is the awe-inspiring, humbling privilege to be reflections of God’s light to the nations. (Matthew 5:14)

The gift comes with a challenge. We are commanded to learn from God the ways of peace, to practice the way of peace, to teach the ways of peace and to be God’s arbitrators- ----between nations, between tribes, between races and between persons. God’s temple dwells in us and makes of us that which we are not. We are called to be servants of the peace of God, not conquerors in the name of God.

In this season, we dare to dream, to see a word from God. We dare to believe that peace is a real alternative. We are utterly realistic because “we are no longer driven by the assumption that we must be in control of history, that it is up to us [alone] to make things come out right.” Out of dreams comes hope. Who knows? From this congregation God may call forth blessed peacemakers. For we worship and await the one who is the Prince of peace. (See Stanley Hauerwas,  The Peaceable Kingdom, 1983; page 87.)