November 3, 2024 * Proper 26
I don’t have a specific scripture to speak on today, just a group of maybe disconnected ideas – at least they feel disconnected – but important.
Our messages for the past several weeks have dealt with how to tell what has been the voice of God, and what has been just humanity voicing its opinions – how to hear God actually speaking through the scriptures we read.
When we finished last week, I said that was the end of all that for awhile and I was glad because I was tired of reading instructions to go out and kill our enemies because God said it was OK, or to slaughter the obviously innocent because they were descended from enemies of hundreds of years before. The same old battles for power and ascendancy seem to fill so much of the Old Testament especially.
So today I’m turning to prophets who called out for peace and justice among the people. Not to discern if this was God speaking or not, but simply to show that it IS here. But even here there is plenty of violence since these stories seem to always start with an angry God who demands retribution and punishment before we can get around to peace and charity.
The Old Testament, in particular, was not always blood and political mayhem. Even here there were those who heard God’s voice as a voice of love – strange though some of it might sound to us today as a loving voice. And we should not lose these teachings because we most decidedly need to hear them even today – especially today.
Prophets such as Amos, Ezekial, Micah, and Isaiah spoke out strongly against those in power who bullied, used, and abused the powerless and poor all to their own advantage. Religious rules existed which forbade such behavior – but they were, then as now – easily ignored by those with money and status.
This sample from Isaiah is a beautiful example of the genuine love and caring that we can also find in the midst of all the bloodshed:
From Isaiah 11 (1-9)
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him …
With righteousness he shall judge for the poor --
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
and faithfulness the belt around his loins …
And a little further along in this extended reading, comes this beautiful song of shared peace:
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
And here is one that we are all familiar with from Micah 6:8:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
But Micah had much more to say to listeners then and still today.
“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.
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem…
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid,
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken…
And we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
forever and ever.
These are promises from God – promises not only for the people of Micah’s time, or Isaiah’s. These are promises for us today as they have been for all peoples down through 3000 or so years – years when the rich and the powerful have done what they want and the oppressed have been forced to bear it.
These are, however, not promises yet to come. In God’s time these promises are now – always in God’s now. There will be a time someday, and there is a time right now
When all shall sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken…
These promises are real someday to come and they are real today, this moment. There is / will be peace and generosity and kindness in this world. It is the Word of God – that we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.
Let us not be so lost in the greed and hatred and fear that we overlook and forget the promises of Peace -- promises given for Then, and for Now, and for All time to come.
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