This is the first Sunday of the month and so we will be celebrating Communion this week.
The Scripture Readings this week are
- Micah 4:1-5
- Isaiah 11:1-10
The Sermon title is The Christmas Dream: Transformative Peace
Early Thoughts: We proclaim that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. The ancient prophets point to a future where people living together in peace will be not just dream and hope and promise but a lived reality. Part of our dream of God breaking into the world is that God will bring a reign of peace.
How might God get us to that point? How might God create the Peaceable Kingdom described in Isaiah 11? How might God convince people that "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 any more;" as Micah envisions?
By transforming the world, by transforming the people. Total transformation of ideals and priorities and assumptions are needed to get us to that place.
This is part of the promise. Total transformation. This is part of what we wait for at Christmas, the one who will change the world.
When we meet Jesus as an adult he proclaims that the Kingdom of God is either here already or near at hand. Jesus is all about this new transformed world. For Christians it is easy to read these two passages from the ancient prophets and seeing Jesus in them. The original writers and hearers may well have had a different understanding of how the dream/vision would come to pass but for Christians we see Jesus.
But there is one question that nibbles at my conscience. Are we ready or willing to be transformed? Are we ready or willing to name that the coming of Jesus, the one we see as the Messiah, means that the world is irrevocably changed? This is not a Jesus who calls us to a personal, individualized faith. This is not a Jesus who calls us to simply put up with the injustice and evil in the world because our true reward will be in heaven. This is a Jesus who says that God's Kingdom is here and now, a Jesus who challenges us to embrace a new way of being in this present world not in some future time after a great cataclysm.
We dream of a peaceful world. We dream of true peace, one that grows out of justice and righteousness not one that it the result of the strong holing down the weak. We dream of a world where swords are turned into plowshares (I wonder what we turn assault rifles into in that image?), where it is true the "they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain", where people live the commandment to love neighbour and friend, family and enemy.
I believe God is at work transforming the world. Sometimes I believe that in spite of a lot of evidence to the contrary. Still I hold on to the dream and the promise. Transformation and peace is possible, is indeed coming.
Remember the angel song as Jesus is born: Peace on the Earth, Goodwill to all.
--Gord
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