If This Isn’t a Time for Prophets of Peace and Light, When is?

Preached by Winton Boyd on Sunday , December 2, 2007
Few things are more complicated than trying to erect a new monument in the heart of Washington, D.C. Local committees, federal investigators, landmark boards, and one commission after another must approve each project. But on September 9, 1997, a gigantic crane cut through the red tape of Judiciary Square and lowered a four-ton sculpture to its permanent cement base.

Titled “Guns into Plowshares,” consists of 3,000 handguns welded together to form a 16-foot-high steel plow blade. Artist Esther Augsburger and her son worked for two and a half years with the Metro Police Department. They molded handguns that had been surrendered by local residents.

This simple plow announces a prophetic hope: the longstanding hope for the day when God will get God’s way, when gunpowder will become grain to feed the hungry; nations will be infected with love for each other; armies will develop amnesia and forget how to fight.

This art piece is not the only example of converting guns for other uses. A group in San Francisco makes bike racks out of old hand guns, and exchanges food for guns in Afghanistan. Another group uses old AK-47’s to make and sell paperweights.

All of these are inspired by today’s text from Isaiah chapter 2.

According to John Dominac Crossan and Marcus Borg in their new book, The First Christmas, there are two kinds of end time visions put forth by Old Testament writers. This oracle from Isaiah is one that envisions a future peace that is achieved not through victory, but through justice. Not through violence, but conversion. The Temple Mount in Jerusalem will become the center of the cosmos: the “highest of the mountains,” the meeting-point between the earthly and heavenly planes; where “all the nations,” will come to Jerusalem to be instructed in God’s Way.

In this vision, the converted people will no longer need war, therefore the people will refashion their weapons into implements of production for the well-being of all.

In this vision, it is the “house of Jacob,” the people of God, have a special role in this transformation of the world. They are to be exemplary, “walking in the light of the Lord” so that all peoples may know God’s way as it is embodied in a particular people’s common life.

Faithful people, people like you and me Isaiah says, striving to live in God’s Way will become instrumental to God’s renewal of the whole world.

Of course, the prophet Isaiah knew that this hope might not come to fruition in his lifetime. He lived and spoke in real time. All he could do was use future-tense verbs and admonish people to start walking in the light.

Artist Augsburger understood the challenge of creating an art object intended to persuade people to stop killing each other. Has it had an impact? Reports indicated that local gang members did gather around the plow to discuss making peace on D.C. city streets. But they soon walked away from the effort, unable to let go of certain grudges.

But the story of DC guns and the prophecy from Isaiah, however, do offer us an appropriate and timely question as we begin this season of Advent, as we light the candle of peace. “

• In what concrete ways are we embodying God’s Way as central for the hope of the world?”
• How are we standing up to humanity’s love for and craving for violence and conflict to say “there is another way?”
• Are we able to keep in our own minds and hearts God’s call to peace through justice – in our daily circles of influence, in the way we spend our money, in the way we look at and pray for our enemies?

It may be our reluctance to pursue God’s way that gives Advent its greatest potency. Advent became a season in the liturgical year in part to remind God’s people not to fall asleep, to wake up, to be ready, to be prepared, to live the values we believe and crave for in our world.

Because it is so easy to lose sight of God’s call for peace, the phrase that jumps out at me in this text for today is often overlooked, “come, let’s climb God’s Mountain.” Let’s climb up to the city of God, Isaiah says. Practically speaking, what has made Jerusalem such a formidable place for all these years is that it is on a mountain. Even driving from the airport in Tel Aviv – one has to ascend about 2000 feet. So, while not a high mountain, it is a climb to get to the city.

Achieving peace, the kind of peace Isaiah pronounced, the kind of peace we long for in our personal and communal lives, involves the hard, sweaty, complicated, danger-laden work of climbing the mountain.

One day, three years ago while on sabbatical in Scotland, our family was hiking up a small mountain in the central part of the country. We had taken the train from Glasgow; but Being newcomers and with an outdated maps that did not show new trails and new parking lots, we got off the bus in the wrong spot and spent the first couple of hours trying to figure out a path up this rocky, and desolate feeling mountainside.

It was warm day and after a while stopped to rest, drink water and share trail mix. It is probably safe to say that at that moment things were not exactly going well. “Where are we?” “why are we doing this?” Who’s idea was this?” “I’m hungry”

As we sat there, along came a young woman dressed in running clothes who was actually running up the path we were on (we later saw her running down too). She was cheerful, pleasant, obviously in shape and the first real life example of what we had heard and read about in Scotland – a Crag runner – people who run up and down small mountains.

Our two experiences of climbing that mountain in that moment could not have been more different. There was the exhausted, uncertain, unconvinced, and decidedly unexcited version; and there was the enthused, energetic, opportunistic, and enjoyable version.

What is true with actually climbing is even more true in working for peace in our daily context. Sometimes it is terribly energizing, and sometimes we want to give up. Sometimes it is infectious and exciting and inspiring – and other times it drags us down.

Mother Theresa, “do not think that (peace), in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to (wage peace) without getting tired. We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

Many of you walked the prayer path labyrinth this week – a small act of peacemaking in your own heart and your own week. Many of you will take home an advent devotional or light advent candles in your home – small acts of creating space for peace and reflection in your day. Many of you will play Christmas music in your homes as a way of preparing your hearts for this season of generosity and hope. Many will attend concerts and dramas and take time for their family to see a movie together. Small acts of creating connection, communion and hope for one another.

In the meantime, we are invited to join the chorus for peace throughout the UCC by signing the “peace petition” – a statement against war that has been signed by 60,000 UCC’ers since September – with a goal of 100,000.

In whatever way is necessary, God invites us to “wake up” this Advent. We are people who have inherited a long, ancient tradition of peace. We know this. We have heard this before. As we begin our advent journey this year, as we begin to prepare our hearts for the coming of God into our lives anew this year – might we recommit ourselves to pursuit of peace with justice. Peace in our hearts. Peace in our homes.

I close with a poem from Roy Howard.  While it address specifically the peace conference for the Middle East in Anapolis this past week, it also speaks to our own personal desire for peace in any number of ways.

Just for a day let peace abide. Just for a day, let the ancient land called holy, soaked in blood, be quiet.

Just for a day let peace abide. Bring them away from Bethlehem and Jerusalem, from Nazareth and Nablus, from Damascus, Riyadh and Amman.

Just for a day let peace abide. Bring them away from violence slouching toward Annapolis; unclench fists, open hardened hearts, shatter foolish pride, encourage risk takers -Israelis, Arabs, Christians, Jews, Muslims ¬
with the holiness that births newness.

Just for a day let peace abide. Let the ancient land called holy soaked in blood, be quiet.
For in your gaze a single day is a thousand years.

Amen!

The text for this sermon is Isaiah 2:1-5,

Isaiah 2 -Climb God’s Mountain(The Message)
Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem: There’s a day coming when the mountain of God’s House will be The Mountain— solid, towering over all mountains.
All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it.
They’ll say, “Come, let’s climb God’s Mountain,
go to the House of the God of Jacob.
He’ll show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.”
Zion’s the source of the revelation.
God’s Message comes from Jerusalem.
He’ll settle things fairly between nations.
He’ll make things right between many peoples.
They’ll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes.
No more will nation fight nation; they won’t play war anymore.
Come, family of Jacob, let’s live in the light of God.