Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "What Happens When He Comes?"

Text: Isaiah 2:1-5

Doesn’t that sound like a lovely idea?

Isaiah is so poetic, so elegant,

and he describes it so beautifully.

His language is much lovelier

than what Jesus says in Matthew 24

about watching and waiting,

and one being taken and another left behind.

They’re talking about the same thing,

the messianic age to come,

even though their focus is different.

But Jesus makes it sound kind of scary,

almost like a threat.

Isaiah makes it sound beautiful.

Or does he?

I think Isaiah is kind of sneaky.

Seems to me,

he uses poetry to say some things

he could never get away with in prose,

like if he wrote them on the editorial page,

or preached them in a sermon.

There’s some radical stuff in there,

the implications of which

his hearers wouldn’t have liked,

and we probably don’t either.

Of course, we know a few things about our world,

but let me give you a quick sketch of Isaiah’s world.

He did his prophesying in the 8^th century B.C.,

probably about the years 742 to 701.

He lived in what was known as

"the "southern kingdom," or Judah.

You may or may not remember from Bible history

that after Solomon was king over Israel and then died,

his sons couldn’t agree who got to be king next,

so they divided the kingdom in half.

By the time Isaiah arrived on the scene,

the "northern kingdom," which was called Israel,

had already been overrun by Assyria.

The southern kingdom of Judah was increasingly under threat …

sometimes from Assyria, sometimes Egypt,

occasionally from those upstarts in Babylonia.

So they were living in a time of intense national hatreds

and almost constant warfare.

Not always armies clashing on battlefields,

but the sort of thing our C.I.A.

so charmingly calls "low-intensity conflict" …

occasional raids against enemy villages,

armed soldiers against unarmed civilians.

Never quite enough to provoke outright war …

Just enough to harass your enemy,

and keep people living in terror,

which tends to make them very obedient to whomever is in power.

In other words, it may have been 2700 years ago,

but it wasn’t all that different in some ways

from the world we live in now.

So at least at first,

Isaiah’s message of peace sounds wonderful.

A welcome relief.

But when we listen more closely,

what we hear is this:

it’s peace on God’s terms, not ours.

And that is where our backpedaling begins.

That’s where the discomfort level starts to skyrocket.

We aren’t at all sure that we like God’s terms.

What are they?

Let’s read between Isaiah’s lines just a bit,

and see what he’s nudging us toward:

What do you suppose would happen … what will happen,

if and when nations decide to come to God

and let God be the judge and arbiter between us?

 Do you imagine that India and Pakistan

want God to settle their conflict?

Do you suppose they really want it settled?

Would either side be happy with the decision?

Do you suppose that God thinks it’s a good idea

that anyone has nuclear weapons?

 Do you suppose that Israel and its neighbors

really want to have God settle their disputes?

Could God find a balance between

the needs of Jews and the needs of Palestinian Arabs?

And would either side abide by God’s decision?

à What might God say at a summit of the G-8 nations

as we squabble about "fair trade" and markets and all that?

What if God said, "You are the wealthiest nations on earth.

Stop sniping at each other

and use your wealth to feed my hungry children,

in your own nations and around the world.

You’re not going to be able to take any of that wealth with you …"

Would we do it?

Or would we decide that God was hopelessly naïve

and didn’t understand the subtleties of international trade,

and just go on squabbling like before?

All of a sudden, Isaiah’s poetry

doesn’t sound so sweet and lovely and innocent any more.

And just what is this crazy notion

about beating swords into plowshares

and spears into pruning hooks?

Would we be willing to lower our standard of living at least temporarily

while the whole military-industrial complex

either shuts down or re-tools?

Are we willing to close military bases

or convert them to peaceful uses?

Could we adjust the workforce to absorb

the military men and women whose jobs would disappear?

What marvelous things could we do

with such people of demonstrated discipline and commitment?

Are we willing to pay the costs

to re-train workers who once built bombs,

to learn to build something creative instead of destructive?

Is there anything safe and peaceful

we can do with weapons-grade plutonium?

And what about the guns that many of us

have in our homes?

See, there goes Isaiah, stepping on our toes again.

In his day, at least, the conversion of sword into plowshare

would be physically easier to accomplish.

But not any less scary.

How willing and able are we

to live our lives without weapons and fighting?

How creative will we be

in finding new ways to live?

And it didn’t occur to me until late,

but that last bit may be the most sacred cow of all.

"Neither shall they learn war any more."

Think about that.

Close down West Point. Annapolis.

The Air Force Academy. The Citadel.

No more ROTC programs in colleges or high schools.

No more Corps at Texas A&M!

Could we stand it?

Are we willing?

And speaking of not learning war …

no more toy guns for our children?

No more violent video games?

Maybe even no more G. I. Joe?

Can we stand it?

What has happened to Isaiah’s

sweet, pretty poetry and promise?

What’s happened is,

we’ve taken it seriously.

We’ve taken his lovely images

and given life to them.

And they scare us.

They threaten us.

And so the first temptation always is,

to kill the messenger.

Jesus got killed because he insisted

that people take God seriously.

The Romans didn’t like it because, in their world,

their superior military power meant that they were number one,

not some oddball God of a conquered people.

But Jesus’ own people didn’t like his message either.

They didn’t want to hear that their

glorious fantasies of armed revolt against Rome

didn’t mesh with God’s way of doing things.

They especially didn’t want to hear that,

even though they were certainly oppressed by Rome,

they were also oppressors in certain ways.,

So they silenced the messenger.

We don’t know for certain what happened to Isaiah,

but the tradition is that he, too, was martyred …

sawn in half, if you believe the story.

And while prophets of today aren’t murdered quite so often,

we do tend to perceive them as pie-in-the-sky hopeless idealists

who have no clue about how to survive in the real world.

Yet Isaiah, and Jesus, and a whole lot of others,

didn’t make up this message.

They got it from God.

God, who created the "real world"

and knows it at least as well as anyone else … !

And so, as we prepare ourselves for Christmas,

and for Christ’s coming,

we need also to be aware

that we’re preparing ourselves for a whole lot more.

We must make ready for a time

when God will be our judge, not we ourselves.

A time when our only available defense

will be justice, not military might.

A time when creation holds more interest for us

than destruction.

A time when our children will no longer

know the meaning of the word "war,"

except as something in their history books.

That time seems very far off.

At least, not much recognizable

from where we are now.

And yet Jesus warns

that it may come upon us suddenly.

He may return, suddenly.

God’s kingdom my come, suddenly.

Everything may change, suddenly.

And we can do our best to prepare ourselves, and the world,

for it to happen …

Or we can ignore the messenger,

and keep on with business as usual.

Christ is coming.

Will we be ready?

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)