Live the way we're made

Isaiah 2: 1-5 (The Message)
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 1, 2019

Let Us Beat Our Swords into Plowshares

I am always leery of using Hebrew scriptures during Advent.

Nothing in them signifies the birth of Jesus or the second coming of Christ or any other themes that herald Christmas. These scriptures stand on their own for those of the Jewish faith. The Church appropriated them as foretelling the birth of Jesus as proof that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. And yet faithful Jews still await their Messiah, the one who will save God’s people Israel. So why read them at all during Advent, you may ask? Because Isaiah’s vision, God’s dream is a shared hope for all of humankind, that one day we will all be able to live in peace.

It makes sense to read about the mountain of God’s House when an Apache holy site in Oak Flat, Arizona has been consigned by the U.S. government to be mined for copper. 

It makes sense to read about things being settled fairly between nations and making things right between many peoples when the U.S. plans to decrease the number of refugees to be admitted in 2020 from 30,000 this year to just 18,000—the lowest it’s ever been. It makes sense when families and children are in detention centers and chants of ‘build the wall’ are still heard. It makes sense when the U.S. pulls out of the Paris Climate accord. It makes sense when tensions are uneasy between the U.S. and Iran as Iran advances its nuclear program.

Guns into Plowshares

It makes sense to read about swords and spears becoming tools for community and farming when the U.S. spends $686 billion on defense and $16 billion on a farm bailout because of tariffs that cause farmers to suffer huge losses in income while driving up costs. It makes sense when U.S. civilians own 393 million guns, about 120 firearms for every 100 residents, which is about 46% of the entire global stock. It makes sense when 37 million Americans struggle with food insecurity. It makes sense when up to 10% of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food waste.



How does it make sense to read of such a hopeful vision that is so far away from a world of hurt? Author Sarah Bessey writes, “It’s because everything hurts that we prepare for Advent. …We don’t get to have hope without having grief. Hope dares to admit that not everything is as it should be, and so if we want to be hopeful, first we have to grieve. First we have to see that something is broken and there is a reason for why we need hope to begin with.”

We grieve what is wrong with the world but we also grieve that God’s dream requires change from us, that there are things we may be reluctant to share or to relinquish. But if we are to live the way we’re made—and the vision is we were made for peace and not war, wholeness and not brokenness, evolution and not regression—we will have to let go of anything that feeds on fear, hatred, and violence.



Sure, we may say, I have no problem letting go of fear, hatred, and violence. And yet what about the forgiveness we have difficulty giving or receiving? What about our desire to keep what we have? What about our acute contempt for certain members of Congress? What about the degrees of separation between us and people who are not like us, the assumptions we make, and the injustice that comes with that?

In Advent we wait, we long for God-with-us but what about the vision of us-with-God? God is already here. Advent is for us to get with God—what is good and holy and true. God sides with the hopeless. What if every decision we made as a church, what if the vision for our church was guided by how it will affect the poor, the outsider and the most vulnerable in our communities? 

In the words of Methodist pastor and poet Roger Wolsey:



“it isn’t about waiting for baby Jesus to be born again
swaddled in a sty

“and it isn’t about waiting for Christ to return again
from a cloud in the sky

“it’s about us deepening into God’s kingdom
– liberated life for you and I”

We were made for God’s kingdom, God’s kin-dom, the Beloved Community, liberated life, God’s will be done earth as it is in heaven. Not only the 24 days of Advent but every day we are invited to deepen our lives, steep our lives in that vision, that dream of hope and peace by how we live, our relationships and connections, all the good we enjoy and are invited to share, how we make space for everyone, especially those at the edges and how we put them in the center.

That’s what this Table is all about. It’s about the effects of fear and hatred and violence on a rabbi and his small group of close friends and the bonds of love that sustained them. It’s about their grief and their brokenness and their fear of change but also about their hope that this meal would not be the end. It’s about the deepening of our lives. This Table is about living the way we’re made—for that vision of peace and not war, wholeness and not brokenness, evolution and not regression—even if it means sacrificing what we’re reluctant to give.



Because the vision, the dream is worth holding onto, with all that we are and all that we have.



Benediction – enfleshed.com

These days cry out for our attention.
The earth groans.
People are laboring for justice.
Divine truths bubble up from within - if we’ll listen.
May we go from here with ears, and eyes, and hearts open to the Sacred,
calling for us with gifts of wisdom and invitations to courage.
In assurance the Spirit goes with us, let us go in peace.