Archive: December 2019

Pilgrims
Advent III; December 15, 2019
Isaiah 35:1-10

Have you ever been on one of those trips where you said, “I don’t know where we are or where we’re going, but we’re making good time”? Doesn’t life feel like that sometimes? We’re making good time – speeding right along – but we don’t know where we’re going and not always sure where we are. I know: for you younger folks sometimes the days just seem to crawl; I remember that well. It feels different to us older folks.

I should say this about the Holy Way that Isaiah sings about here: he did know where it was going. It was going to Zion, taking exiled people back to Jerusalem. And, to be fair, we have an idea where our road of pilgrimage is taking us: it’s taking us to the heavenly Zion, to the Kingdom of God.

But how many detours do we have on the way? And how long a trip is it? There are still many unknowns.

We are pilgrims on a holy way. People often refer to life as a journey, and I like that metaphor. I don’t want to think I’m standing still, never growing or changing. For example, I hope I learn something new every day, whether it’s someone’s name or a scientific fact or a Catalan verb. I don’t retain everything I learn, but the journey of learning is interesting. But I prefer to think of life as not just any journey, but a pilgrimage. Pilgrims are visiting holy places, places of sacred meaning.

If you’ve been to the Holy Land and visited places where Jesus walked, you probably thought of yourself more as a pilgrim than as a tourist. For some, a visit to Memorial Stadium in Lincoln might feel like a pilgrimage. When I visited the memorial at South Pass City, Wyoming, the place where Narcissa Prentiss Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding – Presbyterian missionaries – were the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains, I went as a pilgrim. Likewise when Kathleen and I visited the Castle Church at Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther initiated the Reformation. These are holy places.

Sometimes we find ourselves in holy places quite by surprise. You go to a meeting, and something wonderful happens (well, that’s a surprise in itself, isn’t it?). Anyway, someone says something that opens their soul or a beautiful contact occurs or somehow that place, even for a moment, becomes a holy place. That was a moment when, as Isaiah said, the desert rejoiced and blossomed. The desert of an ordinary, dull day suddenly had cactus flowers, and the place where it happened was holy.

Sometimes this is a holy place. We come here every Sunday hoping for a touch of God’s presence, and when we feel it then we know we’re in a holy place.

I experience holy moments from time to time, and they usually have to do with you. When one of you tells of a moment when you felt the touch of God, or you ask your hard question, or you let me see the markings on your heart: those are holy moments. So I hope you also have those moments with each other, and with family members and with friends. If you keep alert and recognize those holy moments when they happen, then you are not merely a tourist on this road of life, but a pilgrim on the Holy Way.

I wish the Holy Way were always as Isaiah saw it: flowers along the way, the pilgrims all singing together, disabilities healed and refreshing waters always nearby. And even more I wish his vision of a way without lions or other “ravenous beasts” were the reality. Frankly, it wasn’t that easy even for the exiles returning to Jerusalem, although I’m sure they were glad they got to make that trip. They had to deal with a lot, as you and I have to deal with a lot. If you’ve been in the Church for awhile, you’ve had to deal with lions and other ravenous beasts, metaphorically speaking.

Those who returned to Zion had to travel difficult terrain sometimes, needed guides, had to deal with dangers on the road. And when they returned they had a lot of work ahead of them to rebuild their lives. Although Isaiah’s vision is beautiful, the reality was a struggle. But that struggle was made bearable by knowing they were pilgrims, pilgrims on the road to Zion, in company with the people of God. And at the heart of the vision are these words:

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God. He will come with vengeance,
With terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” (3-4)

Imagine the pilgrims on the road. Those who were literally returning – who had been taken from Judah, lived in exile, and were now returning – would have been in their 50s to 70s. It’s a hard journey. Their children and grandchildren did not know the land where they were going. Some of the pilgrims would be frightened, some would be physically weak, some disabled by the journey. Yet on they went, not content to stop until they saw Zion, encouraged by the words “Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

To the reader: the next two paragraphs (“A thought… other ravenous beasts.”) were included when I preached the sermon at the 8:00 service but I missed them at the 10:30 service. I don’t know if it was faulty memory or the Holy Spirit leading me; either way, I decided to include them here.

A thought to bring it home for us. This pilgrimage we are on is sometimes frightening, sometimes maddening. If you pay attention to the reality of our place and time – and I hope you do – then you may alternate between anger and fear, perhaps with long periods of apathy in between. My preaching teacher said that we should always preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other – so I would be holding my iPad, since that’s how I read the newspaper – but, goodness, most of the time I would rather ignore what’s in the newspaper.

This week… what to say about this week? Perhaps the less said the better. I was listening to an interview program about the war in Afghanistan and the subject said to the interviewer, “Congratulations on being the only journalist in America interested in something other than impeachment.” Volcano in New Zealand, shooting in New Jersey, an ISIS raid in Niger, possible client abuse at the center in Glenwood, Iowa… my word, there’s a lot of cactus on this road and plenty of lions and other ravenous beasts.

Our road is the Holy Way, the Way that leads to Zion. There will be hazards and dangers and annoyances and lots of weariness; there will also be holy places and holy moments and the encouragement of those who say, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.” I chose our final hymn, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” because it evokes that sense of our pilgrimage on the Holy Way. In particular, the fourth verse:

And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,
Look now, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing:
O, rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.[1]

We follow the star, the star that led magi to Bethlehem and leads us to Zion, but we don’t travel 24/7. Sometimes we rest beside the weary road to hear the angels sing.

Wherever you are on your pilgrimage, remember these things. Remember that you have companions on the way, some older and more experienced, some younger and full of energy. Though some struggle and some fear, we all take heart from the encouragement, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.” And remember that it is the Holy Way, the Way to Zion, the Way of God. There are dangers, difficulties, disappointments, and long stretches of boredom, like a highway through Kansas. But there are holy places, and holy moments, where the curtain between heaven and earth is thin and we catch a glimpse of our home, of Zion.

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

[1] Edmund Hamilton Sears, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear” (1849); #123 in Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).

Wolves and Lambs at Play
Advent II; December 8, 2019
Isaiah 11:1-10

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”

In Arizona we had a native plant called a “century plant,” an agave. It lived many years – not a century, though – and would bloom only once, and then die. In my yard I had a century plant and when it bloomed the stalk shot up about ten feet and the blossom was huge. After a while I cut it down, trimmed it and attached it to a pair of boards. I sprayed shellac all over it, and then took it to the church. We put it up the First Sunday of Advent and hung chrismons on it; we called it our “Jesse Tree.”

Jesse was King David’s daddy; when the Prophet Isaiah said a shoot would come out from the stump of Jesse, he was predicting that King David would have an heir who would do all the things that he proceeds to describe. The line of David was eventually cut down; it blossomed and reigned for 400 years, and then was cut down. But you know what can happen if you cut down a tree and don’t remove the stump or grind out or poison the roots: a shoot may grow from the stump; new shoots may come up from the roots.

The Chaldeans cut down the tree of Jesse, the House of David, but they didn’t grind out the roots. So from the stump came the Son of Mary.

Isaiah’s words are a good example of the tension we live as people of God, tension between the “now” and the “not yet.” Isaiah’s vision is very compelling: a world where children are safe from poisonous snakes, where wolves and lambs play together, and calves and bear cubs curl up together for naps. We hang chrismons on the Jesse Tree to remind us of the vision, of the Peaceable Kingdom that we hope to see. And even if the wildlife images are metaphorical, it is still something we yearn for: where the weak in a society – the lambs, the calves – are not the subject of predatory victimizers. We yearn for a day when grandma is safe from scammers sending an email, “I’m in jail in Madrid; please send money,” when getting stopped for “Driving While Black” is no longer a thing, when the Golden Rule is not “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.” The vision is compelling and is not yet.

Still, I’ll point to the “now” in this vision. One thing to keep in mind is that the image of the peaceful kingdom has inspired those who have worked for peace over the years. Some have seen moments of its fulfillment, such as in this painting by the American artist Edward Hicks (1780-1849) (above). Hicks painted sixty-two versions of this image from Isaiah 11, and many of them portray the moment you see here: when William Penn made a treaty of peace with the natives of the land to become Pennsylvania. Penn, you know, was a Quaker and Quakers are a people devoted to peace, not only among themselves but with others. And so he would not forcibly take land from the natives, but established and kept a treaty. Things started to go sour with the next generation, but the vision of peace in Isaiah 11 inspired Quakers and especially Edward Hicks.

The other fulfillment we have already seen, of course, is in our Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. He is the shoot to grow out of the stump of Jesse, the branch that grew from its roots. He is the one who carried to others the spirit of the Lord, who did not judge by what his eyes saw, but judged with righteousness and equity.

I could start to lament about how the peace that Isaiah envisioned has not come with Jesus and, rightly, blame us for that reality. We don’t actually do the things Jesus teaches us to do; and we end up fighting about the silliest things. Still, I think it better to stay focused on Jesus than to start lamenting our sins.

Although it is not yet the case that the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, the knowledge of the Lord has spread throughout the earth because of Jesus. He preached a word that welcomes every sort and type of person into relationship with God; his death on the Cross is a sign of love for every race and nation; his Resurrection from the dead has broken open his kingdom of life to reach throughout the world. Resurrection power has motivated his people to go everywhere, telling the story of his righteous life, his saving death, his glorious Resurrection. The knowledge of the Lord has been spreading across the earth.

And Isaiah concluded his vision by saying that the root of Jesse would stand “as a signal to the peoples.” Whatever else you may say about Jesus, he does stand as such a signal. Whether nations and leaders pay attention or not, the person of Jesus stands as advocate and judge, as a signal of the ways of God: grace, love, mercy, peace, all the things that continue to subvert the dominant paradigm of human life.

When I run through the many beautiful parks we have here in Omaha, I have yet to see the wolves and lambs at play. But sometimes I catch a glimpse, a hint, a shadow of the promise of Isaiah. And then I look around for more signs of the coming of the shoot of Jesse.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

To Judge the Nations
Advent I; December 1, 2019
Isaiah 2:1-5

I feel that as a society we have opposite yearnings that are in tension with each other. We yearn for complete freedom, the ability to make choices and to decide our own direction in life. And we yearn for an absolute ruler who will make everything okay. Perhaps you sense some of that tension even within yourself, as I do. In the weight-management program I’m part of, we emphasize freedom, flexibility, and choice, but I know sometimes people approach it with the attitude, “Just tell me what I am and am not allowed to eat.”

This prophecy from Isaiah has that tension within it, too. On the one hand, it shows the nations freely choosing their way; on the other hand, it shows a righteous Judge compelling them to behave. Let’s talk our way through the prophecy.

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

We Christians pay a lot of attention to the Book of Isaiah, because it has so much in it that we relate to Jesus. I’m relying on the lectionary – the cycle of readings – that churches throughout the United States use during Advent this year, and every Sunday of Advent plus on Christmas Eve the Old Testament readings are all from Isaiah. But when the Prophet had this particular vision, he wasn’t thinking of a Messiah to be born in Bethlehem some 700 years later. He was thinking about his own country in the situation of his time. If you read Isaiah’s story, you see that he was an advisor to the government of his country; he had actual political events and real public policy in mind. People who say that we shouldn’t talk about politics in church had better stay away from the Book of Isaiah.

But there is something curious about this prophecy: it is almost word-for-word in the Book of Micah too (4:1-3). Was Isaiah quoting Micah or was Micah quoting Isaiah? Did God give both of them the same vision (they were roughly contemporaries)? Or were they both quoting somebody else? At any rate, that both Isaiah and Micah have this prophecy in their books suggests that it is something we ought to pay attention to.

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
And shall be raised above the hills;
All the nations shall stream to it.

I’ve never been to Jerusalem to see how the Temple Mount compares to the surrounding area; we were supposed to go and just before we were to leave the Second Intifada broke out and the company canceled our trip. Pictures make it appear that it stands out, but that it isn’t even the highest hill in its own area. Its elevation is about 2400 feet above sea level, so it isn’t even as high as the town where I lived in Arizona, much less the highest mountain in the world.

I don’t imagine even Isaiah was thinking literally that the Temple Mount would be elevated to higher than Everest; the image is symbolic of its importance. In the vision the mountain of the Lord’s house would become more important than any other high place in the world, so that people from everywhere would go to it. They would go to it in pilgrimage; we’ll come back to that in a minute. In our time, the mountain of the Lord’s house is important as one of the most disputed pieces of real estate in the world. It is the place in Jerusalem where Solomon built the Lord’s Temple, where Zerubbabel rebuilt it after the Exile, and where Herod the Great expanded it into a marvel to amaze everyone. It is also the place where tradition claims the Prophet Muhammed ascended into Heaven, where the Umayyad Caliphs built the Dome of the Rock more than 1300 years ago. Muslims and Jews both revere the site. The Second Intifada, which caused the cancellation of our trip to Israel and Palestine, broke out after a provocative visit there by Ariel Sharon. As the focus of international attention and conflict, Jerusalem is indeed of great importance, but not in the way the Prophet envisioned.

Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
That he may teach us his ways
And that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

I think that’s clear and doesn’t need much explanation from me. Isaiah and Micah both see a day when the peoples and nations freely choose to go to Jerusalem, to the mountain of the Lord’s house, in order to learn the ways of the Lord. When Isaiah was advising the King of Judah, he would consistently urge the King to stay true to the ways of the Lord and not to fall into diplomatic traps. In particular, he did not want King Ahaz to look for help from the Assyrian Empire against his local enemies. Kings and other political leaders tend to see prophets and religious advisors as impractical visionaries; those visionaries believe that if governments are true to the ways of God, they have divine justice to support their decisions.

It’s an old conflict, but one that hasn’t gone away: the ways of God versus the so-called practical politics of the nations. We struggle in our political choices between our instincts and desire for power and for vengeance, on the one hand, and the ways of God as taught us by the prophets and by Jesus on the other hand. We fail only when we assume they are the same, only when we assume that our usual way of doing business as nations is the way that God intends.

What I find appealing about the Prophet’s vision is that the peoples, the nations are streaming to Jerusalem to learn the ways of the Lord and they do so by their own choice. They have discovered that their usual ways are not serving them well and they want to learn a new way of being, a new way of diplomacy, a new form of politics. It is as though they had an “Aha!” moment and realized that their old ways no longer served. Although Albert Einstein didn’t say it,[1] it is still true that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Nations continue to behave as we have for thousands of years and it still ends in disaster, as it always has. When the nations come to their senses, say Isaiah and Micah, they will turn to the Lord’s house for instruction.

He shall judge between the nations,
And shall arbitrate for many peoples;
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.

And when they come to the Lord’s house, it will be not only for instruction but also for judgment. One of the reasons human society is so much more peaceful than it was thousands of years ago is that we leave judgment in the hands of the State, rather than attending to it ourselves. When one person wrongs another, either the State files charges or the victim files a lawsuit. Either way, no one’s house is burned down, as in the stories of old. In the vision, the same thing comes true between nations. When a nation has a complaint against another, rather than raising an army and invading, the nation takes the complaint to the Lord’s house, where it will be judged.

Of course, this is the vision behind the United Nations, and a sculpture at the UN Building in New York reflects this vision. Nations take their accumulated weapons and convert them into farm implements; they close their war colleges and teach literature instead. Imagine what we could do as a nation if we did not spend almost as much on military expenditures as the next eight countries combined, two-and-three-quarters as much as number two, China. We could rebuild our collapsing infrastructure, improve transportation, reduce taxes or at least make a valiant attempt at returning to the balanced budgets we had in the 1990s. In the prophet’s vision, the nations submit their disputes to the Lord, who I imagine has the power to enforce his decisions. That, of course, is the weakness of the United Nations. It can decide what is just between nations, but it cannot enforce its justice. That part of the vision remains to be realized.

O house of Jacob,
Come let us walk
in the light of the Lord!

Isaiah does not leave us to sit and yearn for the day when the nations stream to Jerusalem for instruction and for judgment, but gives the people of God something to do in the meantime: join the Resistance. Whether the nations turn to it or not, the light of the Lord is streaming on us all the time: the light of the Scriptures, the light of the prophets, the light of the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. We’ll walk in the light: when politics demands vengeance, we’ll work at forgiveness. When practicality calls for violence, we’ll strive for peace. When public sentiment calls for division and fear, we’ll practice inclusion and hospitality.

Advent presents us with a vision, a vision of what is to be, but doesn’t leave us sitting and simply yearning for that vision. It presents us with the opportunity to live that vision, of swords giving way to plowshares and tanks to tractors. O house of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Robert A. Keefer
Presbyterian Church of the Master
Omaha, Nebraska

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/