12/02/01                                                                                        Isaiah 2:1-5

         “WHAT WILL BE YOUR CHRISTMAS GIFT TO GOD?”

Rev. James Singleton

            What would it be like to live in a perfect world? Here are a few of my dreams:

• In a perfect world a person would feel as good at 55 as he did at 17, and he would actually be as smart at 55 as he thought he was at 17.
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• In a perfect world the Cleveland Indians would have as much money to spend on players as the New York Yankees.

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• In a perfect world, broccoli would be filled with calories and cholesterol and chocolate would contain essential bodily nutrients.

• In a perfect world winter would last from Thanksgiving to Christmas and every snowfall would be the light fluffy kind that makes the world look like a shaker globe, and then melt within an hour.

These are some of my dreams for the world. The prophet Isaiah, also, had his own dream about what a perfect world would be like. His dream is probably a little more significant and momentous than mine.  

In a perfect world, Isaiah dreamt of the time when people from every nation will seek to walk in God’s light and beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. He dreamt of the time when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. I’ll say one thing for Isaiah, when he dreamt he really dreamt big.

      I can’t argue with Isaiah’s dream, but I have to admit that, lately, my dreams appear to have much more of a chance of coming true than does his dream. The people of this world are a very long way from beating their guns into backhoes and their bombs into school buildings and learning war no more.

Instead, war seems to be the one lesson that we learn all too well. War is our daily news diet. Ever since September 11^th, 2001 the world has been in a state of turmoil. In the United States alone we have beaten the war drums for Afghanistan and Iraq and now war with Iran is in the realm of possibility. Then there is Israel and Palestine, Darfur, and Syria just to name a few other hot spots.

The world seems more willing to follow the prophet Joel than Isaiah. In Joel 3:10 the prophet reverses the words of Isaiah and says: “Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears.” That we know how to do.
 

 Conflict and killing, bombing and terrorizing are realities. So to dream of a day when nations learn war no more seems to be nothing more than fantasy. What are we to make of Isaiah’s vision of peace?

      In the film Grand Canyon, an immigration attorney breaks out of a traffic jam and attempts to bypass it. His route takes him along streets that seem progressively darker and sinister. Then his worst nightmare happens—his expensive car stalls on one of those alarming streets.

The attorney manages to phone a tow truck, but before it arrives, five young street toughs surround his disabled car and threaten him with considerable bodily harm.
 

      Then, just in time, the tow truck shows up and its driver begins to hook up to the disabled car. The toughs protest and threaten the tow truck driver. The driver then takes the leader of the group aside and says to him, “Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you rippin’ him off. Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is here.”

      Isaiah knew that the way the world is, with its lust for war and its rivers of blood, is not the way the world is suppose to be. He dreamt of a new age when human crookedness would be straightened out, when the foolish would become wise, the powerful would be humble and the evil would become good. He dreamt of a time when killers would become healers and generals would lead armies of peacemakers not warriors.

And he could dream such a dream because he believed in the coming of a day when God would make things different. He believed the time would come when God will make the world the way it is suppose to be and the people of God must be ready to follow.

      Lon Woodrum wrote a poem entitled The Prophecy following WWII based upon Isaiah’s dream of the future:

                  Have you heard the voice in the darkness,

                  Coming up from the foggy past?

                  Do you hear, you winged warriors,

                  Over the cyclonic blast

                  Of motors, and the shriek of the bombs as

                  They fall?

                  Did you hear it, you beautiful sons,

                  As you fell in the flash of guns?

                  You can hear it, earth, you can hear it

                  In the crackle of cities that burn

                  In the lancing cry of the children,

                  In the silence of those who will never return.

                  There’s a voice on the wind of the world,

                  Beating loud on the uttermost shore:

                  Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

                  Neither shall they learn war any more.

                  There’s a voice on the wind of the world,

                  The voice long-crushed.

                  Woe to the waters, the dust and the cloud,

                  If the voice be hushed!

·        Woe to this world if we ever get to the point of resigning ourselves to the horror that war and killing, hate and evil are just the way things are.

·        Woe to this world if there ceases to be a people who understand that the world is not supposed to be this way.

·        Woe to this world if Isaiah’s voice is hushed and his dream is blown off as impossible and irrelevant.

Today is the first Sunday of the Season of Advent. For most people, the four weeks of Advent are merely the crazy shopping days before Christmas. Even for many worshippers, Advent seems to be little more than a countdown as we light a candle each week indicating that we are drawing closer to “that day.”  

But Advent is meant to be more than a time to buy presents or wait for the big day to arrive. Advent is an invitation to go on a journey. Something new is breaking into the world; a new Light is coming into this dark planet, and we are invited to walk in that Light. The Prince of Peace is coming to show us the way it is supposed to be, and Advent is calling us to begin to live now in the way that He brings.  

Advent calls us think beyond what we want for Christmas and challenges us to think about what God wants for Christmas. As difficult as it is to believe, Jesus did not come to earth simply so we can get a Sony Ericsson W5801 iphone or a Magellan Maestron 4050 GPS, or that longed for pair of Moschino Chic Peeptoe kiltie shoes. Jesus came to change the world and the way we relate to one another in the world.  

He will grow up to break down the dividing walls of hostility between us and to call upon us to follow him. And if we remain faithful in our following, we will follow him all the way to the cross where we will see the unconditional and sacrificial love that God has for all of us which is meant to melt our warring hearts into flowing love.
 

We Christians are preparing ourselves to worship the one who is born in Bethlehem as the Savior of the world. But he will not come with unlimited military might, scorching the earth with firepower. Instead, he will come with angels singing in the night: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward all.”   

“Blessed are the peacemakers” Jesus said. It is not the peace lovers who are blessed but the peace makers. We all love peace, but loving peace isn’t enough. We can love peace and still be angry with another, hold grudges, become petty in our criticism, be judgmental, refuse to forgive, and refuse to give. We can love peace in theory and live war with our neighbor in reality.  

The only ones Jesus calls the children of God are those who go about actually making a difference, trying to reconcile with those estranged, reaching out to those who are considered an enemy. It is not only those who live in foreign countries with whom we go to war.
 

·        To follow this Prince of Peace means bringing to an end the hostilities within our own families and beating our piercing words into healing actions.

·        To follow him means turning the other cheek when you feel betrayed by a friend and beating antagonism back into friendship.

·        To follow him means beating our grudges into forgiveness, our resentments into compassion, and our angers into mercy.

            For fifty-seven years North and South Korea have been in an uneasy cease-fire and separated by the longest demilitarized border in the world. Every day two million armed troops, in many cases brothers, cousins, and uncles, stand face to face against each other. Korea is one of the most dangerous and volatile places on earth.

            In 2005, two men decided they would try to make a difference. Jeong Gap-Cheol, a mayor of Hwacheon (Wa-shon), South Korea where a fierce battle took place during the Korean War, and Professor Kim Yong-Bok, Chancellor of the Asia Pacific Graduate School for the Study of Life, declared Hwacheon to be “The Peace Capital of the World.”

To prove it, they would create a World Peace Bell out of spent cartridges from around the world. The metal peace bell is now being formed and will be hung next year about this time. For now a wooden bell—which does not make a sound—marks the place where it will hang. You can go to www.peacebell.co.kr and see this project for yourselves.

            Catholic nun and writer Joan Chittister writes: “From where I stand, it is a very bold project. Impossible, some may say. Even foolish. But oh, so beautiful, so rational, so clear.

“And, by the way, just as they thought, people are beginning to come from all parts of the globe to stand there with them at the border of 21^st century insanity where a mayor, a professor, and a tiny county are saying no to war and yes to human community. I don’t know if these people are Christian but surely this is walking in the Light of the Lord.”

            Imagine a world where gun cartridges are beaten into peace bells! Advent is a season that asks us to dream of the possibilities God can bring and to start walking toward those possibilities.

            This Advent, where are you being called to be a peacemaker? What relationships need healing in your life? What are your spent cartridges that need to be beaten into a peace bell? Have you shot words that wounded another, fired actions meant to hurt someone, discharged feelings that blew up a relationship?

            Today we are given a dream of a perfect world when people will learn war no more but, instead, will come together to worship. It is a vision we are to take to heart. It is a vision meant to change our hearts.

This first Sunday of Advent begins the journey toward this vision of peace. Let us never lose sight of the way the world is supposed to be or of the child who will lead the way. So the first Advent question is this:

How will you walk in the light of the Lord? Your answer is your Christmas gift to God.

                                                                                    AMEN