November 13, 2022
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things
shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am
creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a
delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my
people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of
distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives
but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who
dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of
a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they
shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they
shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of
my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I
will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the
lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They
shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
When I told someone about the
text that I selected, he sniffed and dismissed it saying, “Isaiah 65 smells of
funeral lilies.” I have to agree; this ancient poem resides on the Top Ten list
of readings for a memorial service. It ranks up there with the 23rd Psalm, the
21st chapter of Revelation, and the promise from Jesus to “let not your hearts
be troubled.” And if I’m honest, someday far in the future, I want someone to
read it at my funeral.
Yet I don’t think for a minute
that this is a poem about death. Isaiah gives us a vision for life.
It comes near the end of his
collection of writings, after many chapters full of pain. Suddenly there is the
promise of healing and restoration. God describes a flourishing life for all.
If there was trouble, it’s interrupted by joy. If there was despair, the burden
has been taken away. If anybody was robbed of life, life is given back – with
abundance.
For the first time in the Bible,
Isaiah offers the vision of new heavens and a new earth. Why are they new?
Because the old ones are worn out. The Creator of all things promises a new
creation. It’s a preview for the season of Advent, which begins for us in a few
weeks. More than that, it’s the promise of a new life that is an alternative to
the life we have known. Imagine a world, says the prophet, where everything
connects, like a puzzle where all the pieces fit.
With vivid colors, Isaiah paints
a picture where heaven and earth are one. No more weeping or distress. Life
will never be cut short. People will live out the full length of their days.
There will be continuity between human dreams and their fulfillment. Families
will build houses and live in them. Farmers will plant vineyards and taste the
wine. Every worker will enjoy their daily labor, and every soul will be thoroughly
alive. That’s the picture.
At the center is an astonishing
vision of peace: predators do not consume, and the prey doesn’t hide or run
away. The wolf and lamb coexist. The ravenous lion has become a vegetarian and
steps up to the feed bin next to the ox. Imagine this, says the prophet Isaiah.
Imagine a life where everything fits.
This is what God dreams for the
world. This is the dream that God implants in the imagination of the prophet
Isaiah. This is the dream that emerges to be written down in the Bible, where
it is waiting to be rediscovered by every generation and lived with fresh
energy.
It is a powerful dream, because
it is an alternative to most of the stories that actually appear in the Bible.
God created a new earth once before, and by page three in the book of Genesis,
Cain has risen up against his brother Abel. Not long after that, Pharoah
enslaves a whole race of people as his work force.
God comes again to break Israel
out of slavery, offering a number of commandments to guide the nation’s life –
commandments that are regularly broken. The people cry out for a leader, a good
leader. Soon, most of their kings (and a few of their queens) are maneuvering
and manipulating their way to greater power, climbing over whoever is in the
way.
We can’t ever dismiss the Bible
as a book of fairy tales. No, it offers honest observations about the human
animal. We live in a world where good work is met with resistance and the
innocent are crucified.
And we are reminded of the
recurring problem with the human race: God implants within us a dream of peace,
yet we keep choosing something less than the dream. We don’t need to blame the
devil or anybody else for this. No, we are the ones who choose. Every day some
people are demeaned as something less than the image of God that they bear. The
weak are plundered, often to increase the profits of the arrogant. Those who
are deemed different are dismissed. And everybody is shouting over one another.
This is why so many of us regard
the Bible as truth: it tells the truth about real people.
Yet the Bible also speaks the
truth about God. We live because God is patient, “slow to anger and abounding
with steadfast love.” And every day, we have the opportunity to live out the
dream that God has for us. Imagine the wolf and the lamb feeding together.
Nobody gets hurt. On God’s holy hill, there is no destruction, only peace. And
God speaks up to make the promise, “I will rejoice and delight in my people.”
One of the reasons why some of us
listen to sermons is to catch a glimpse of this grand vision. We connect to one
another in faith communities to amplify this dream, which has been planted in
our hearts and minds. Left to our own devices, we would merely slide back into
the mud and muck of chaos, and act like wild animals. All progress would be
lost. Yet Isaiah 65 says there is an alternative.
The alternative is peace – peace
within ourselves, peace between one another. The Hebrew Bible calls it
“shalom.” Shalom is the balance between all the forces of life. Shalom holds
the continuity between past and present. Shalom is a life lived without
aggression or its ensuing damage. We can welcome one another as neighbors, and
not competitors. We can live in harmony with everybody we meet. This is God’s
dream, and it is given to us. We can work on it now or wait until God makes it
happen. Either way, it comes as a gift from a new heaven for a new earth.
One summer day, I hopped the bus
to New York City with one of our daughters. She was a college student, studying
art, and we wanted to visit a few galleries. It turned out to be a major
disappointment. The Metropolitan Museum was closed, the Frick collection was
shut down, and the Guggenheim was undergoing renovations.
Every few steps, we heard another
siren in the distance. By the Central Park boat pond, a little kid was
screaming at his mother. A couple of panhandlers tried to shake us down. We
were just about ready to call it a day when suddenly we stepped into a quiet
grove of elm trees. Three paths intersected in the shape of a teardrop. Before
us was a mosaic of black and white stones, covered with bouquets of flowers.
To our surprise, we had come upon
the memorial to the songwriter John Lennon. It’s right there by 72nd Street,
right across from the apartment building where he had lived. In the center of
the mosaic is the title of one of his most famous songs, “Imagine.”
You probably know that song.
Lennon sang of a world as Isaiah saw it: a globe without borders, a world
without greed or aggression, a community of living beings dwelling together in
peace. Right across the street is where an assassin took Lennon’s life one
night when he returned from a recording session. We paused, drew our breath at
the pain of the memory.
But there, in that mosaic, is the
invitation that remains: imagine.
It is a holy invitation.
It leads me to make a modest
proposal – that we live the dream that God has for us all. That we live as
generously and graciously as Jesus. That we set a high standard of how to
respect one another, serve one another, and love one another. It’s not enough
to have the dream; it must also take flesh in what we do with our lives.
The first Christians forged the
church by living like Jesus as best they could. They didn’t take any orders
from the Roman empire. They lived the Isaiah 65 dream. People outside their
circle were drawn inside it. They caught a glimpse of how all of us can take
part in God’s shalom. Even the fiercest critics looked at the church and said,
“See how much they love one another.”
What if the people in your community
could say the same thing about you? What if each of us could treat one another
with such respect and compassion that our neighbors said, “We want to be part
of a group like that?” Now that would be living the dream.
Maybe it starts with small,
steady steps that benefit the lives of others, like taking a meal to the woman
who just came home from surgery. Or introducing ourselves to the neighbors
whose names we do not know. Or reading a story to a child. Or listening to the
stories of those older than ourselves. Or planting a grove of trees that could
outlive us. Or offering a safe haven to someone in danger.
Shalom always begins by offering
an act of kindness. I think of the woman who heard a strange noise in her
neighborhood. It had been a difficult week in her town, an election week, full
of all the political bluster of November. A loud noise erupted outside her
home, and she went to see what it was. It was a man with a leaf blower working
his way down her street. He doesn’t live nearby, but he was clearing all the
leaves from everybody’s yards.
Somebody asked, “Why are you
doing this?” He replied, “It’s been a difficult week, and this is a way to
offer some goodness and blessing.”
Imagine that. Imagine shalom.
Let
us pray.
Holy and loving God, do not allow
us to be so consumed by the aggressions of this world that we cease to see what
you imagine for us all. Implant within us a vision of your peace and
well-being. And make that vision so attractive, enticing, and beautiful that we
will work for it until the day when you make all things new. We pray this in
the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
As recorded on Day 1.
Link: https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/6352a6926615fbf67d000085/bill-carter-living-the-dream
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