Isaiah 65:17-25
“Pay close attention now:
I’m creating new heavens and a new earth.
All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain
are things of the past, to be forgotten.
Look ahead with joy.
Anticipate what I’m creating:
I’ll create Jerusalem as sheer joy,
create my people as pure delight.
I’ll take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people:
No more sounds of weeping in the city,
no cries of anguish;
No more babies dying in the cradle,
or old people who don’t enjoy a full lifetime;
One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal--
anything less will seem like a cheat.
They’ll build houses and move in.
They’ll plant fields and eat what they grow.
No more building a house that some outsider takes over,
No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates,
For my people will be as long-lived as trees,
my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work.
They won’t work and have nothing come of it,
they won’t have children snatched out from under them.
For they themselves are plantings blessed by God,
with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed.
Before they call out, I’ll answer.
Before they’ve finished speaking, I’ll have heard.
Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow,
lion and ox eat straw from the same trough,
but snakes—they’ll get a diet of dirt!
Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill
anywhere on my Holy Mountain,” says God.
This reading and our discussion will be the last of our Summer Sermon Series for 2019. Next Sunday is Thanksgiving Sunday and the following Sunday – believe it or not – is the first Sunday of Advent. I’m hoping for a little rain before then. I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of the approach to Christmas when the world is so sun-shiny and the sky is its present dazzling blue.
Anyway – we will most likely be reading more from the Old Testament during Advent, but this will be the last ‘official’ reading in our What Bible Did Jesus Know? series – and it is fitting this reading comes from the end of Isaiah’s writings, from the 65th chapter (there are only 66 total.)
This is a promise. The promise from God that no matter how terrible things may look at any given moment, this is God’s word that there will be joy.
It’s important to keep in mind that the language used here is the language of metaphor. When it speaks of Jerusalem, it does not mean just one city in Israel, but everywhere that is part of the City of God. It is not literally guaranteeing that everyone will live to be one-hundred years old, but instead, that everyone will have the chance to live long, fulfilling lives. This poem describes an idealized version of what life among God’s people can one day be, with no more weeping, no more injustice, no more violence.
This is God’s promise that all this is possible. But God isn’t going to do it all for us. God isn’t going to snap God’s fingers and make it all magically appear. We are, I believe, expected to do our part. If this is the world we want we must work toward it and believe toward it to make it happen. This requires faith. This requires living in the subjunctive, in the as if. Author Barbara Kingsolver writes: "The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."
This is absolutely not easy. All we have to do is look around us to see how far away all this feels right now. Hate has come out of the closet and walks all around in broad daylight. Rage seems to be many people’s default setting today. Our children our constantly snatched from us – we lost three more this week in another school shooting, not to mention the dozens still taken by ICE every week and casually lost.
There is, unquestionably, weeping and more weeping in our world today.
And yet, this is not just any old promise – this is God’s promise and if we are going to call ourselves believers then we must choose to believe and live into that as if. God calls us, in Kingsolver’s words, to live inside that hope. As God’s people we are to live inside this promise.
And how do we do this? It’s not make-believe, it’s not pretending. It’s making a choice. The world tries to sell us one version of reality – a version full of bigotry and selfishness and fear -- a vision defined by scarcity -- while God offers us another version – a version of peace and sharing and love -- a vision with plenty for everyone. We get to choose in which one we will live.
If we make our choice for God’s world, then we are to wake each morning and give thanks. We are to look into each face we meet and see another child of God. We are to open our eyes and see where we, and our systems, are unjust, and change the systems and change ourselves. We are to build justice – for all people everywhere -- and believe that it will stand through the ages. We will share our world with each other – not only with those like us but all those unlike us -- and with both the wolf and the lamb so that no one, in Isaiah’s words, will hurt or kill anywhere in God’s holy earth. So that the great promise of joy given here will be lived reality for all of God’s creation.
And there will be joy – because joy in the words of the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "... is the infallible sign of the presence of God." Where God is there is joy. MAy we all live into that joy.
Anyway – we will most likely be reading more from the Old Testament during Advent, but this will be the last ‘official’ reading in our What Bible Did Jesus Know? series – and it is fitting this reading comes from the end of Isaiah’s writings, from the 65th chapter (there are only 66 total.)
This is a promise. The promise from God that no matter how terrible things may look at any given moment, this is God’s word that there will be joy.
It’s important to keep in mind that the language used here is the language of metaphor. When it speaks of Jerusalem, it does not mean just one city in Israel, but everywhere that is part of the City of God. It is not literally guaranteeing that everyone will live to be one-hundred years old, but instead, that everyone will have the chance to live long, fulfilling lives. This poem describes an idealized version of what life among God’s people can one day be, with no more weeping, no more injustice, no more violence.
This is God’s promise that all this is possible. But God isn’t going to do it all for us. God isn’t going to snap God’s fingers and make it all magically appear. We are, I believe, expected to do our part. If this is the world we want we must work toward it and believe toward it to make it happen. This requires faith. This requires living in the subjunctive, in the as if. Author Barbara Kingsolver writes: "The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof."
This is absolutely not easy. All we have to do is look around us to see how far away all this feels right now. Hate has come out of the closet and walks all around in broad daylight. Rage seems to be many people’s default setting today. Our children our constantly snatched from us – we lost three more this week in another school shooting, not to mention the dozens still taken by ICE every week and casually lost.
There is, unquestionably, weeping and more weeping in our world today.
And yet, this is not just any old promise – this is God’s promise and if we are going to call ourselves believers then we must choose to believe and live into that as if. God calls us, in Kingsolver’s words, to live inside that hope. As God’s people we are to live inside this promise.
And how do we do this? It’s not make-believe, it’s not pretending. It’s making a choice. The world tries to sell us one version of reality – a version full of bigotry and selfishness and fear -- a vision defined by scarcity -- while God offers us another version – a version of peace and sharing and love -- a vision with plenty for everyone. We get to choose in which one we will live.
If we make our choice for God’s world, then we are to wake each morning and give thanks. We are to look into each face we meet and see another child of God. We are to open our eyes and see where we, and our systems, are unjust, and change the systems and change ourselves. We are to build justice – for all people everywhere -- and believe that it will stand through the ages. We will share our world with each other – not only with those like us but all those unlike us -- and with both the wolf and the lamb so that no one, in Isaiah’s words, will hurt or kill anywhere in God’s holy earth. So that the great promise of joy given here will be lived reality for all of God’s creation.
And there will be joy – because joy in the words of the French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "... is the infallible sign of the presence of God." Where God is there is joy. MAy we all live into that joy.
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