Creation at Peace

Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 21:5-19

          Edward Hicks was a Quaker preacher in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, in the first half of the nineteenth century. To supplement his meager income, he painted. You have probably seen prints of his most famous painting.  It is titled Peaceable Kingdom.  In the center of the painting stands a large ox.  Next to the ox is one of the ox’s archenemies, a lion.  Surrounding the ox and the lion are a variety of animals known not to live peaceably together: a wolf, sheep, a leopard, cows.  Three children are present.  One child rests his hand upon the back of the lion.  Another pets the paw of the leopard. If you look closely, you notice the third child has his hand over the entrance to a snake’s den. Off to the side of the animals and children, William Penn, another peace-loving Quaker, and other leaders negotiate a peace treaty with the Native Americans. 

          It is a painting that depicts a creation at peace. It was inspired, Hicks said, by passages from the prophecy of Isaiah, specifically chapters 11 and 65, which I read earlier.  Some say these passages are some of the best know and loved in all of biblical literature.  Gene Tucker, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, writes, “These verses articulate the deep and persistent human hope for justice and peace” (TNIB, Vol. 6, p. 139).  Another theologian says we have to imagine Isaiah getting to this point in his message, closing his eyes, and after a lengthy silence reciting our text for today (Paul Hanson, Interpretation, Isaiah 40-66, p. 245).  It speaks of new heavens and a new earth, where there will be no weeping or cries of distress.  Infants will not die in their cribs.  A person a hundred years old will be considered a youth.  Rulers will not be corrupt. They will not pander to one group or to another.  The Spirit of the Lord will be upon the ruler, the text reads. He will not judge by what he sees or by what he hears.  His judgement will go deeper than what can be seen and heard, and it will ensure justice for the “poor” and for the “meek of the earth.” This idealized ruler will establish justice for all people, creating a just environment where a peaceable kingdom can take hold and flourish.

          Close your eyes if you like and imagine creation at peace.  The wolf and the lamb will feed together.  The lion shall eat straw like the ox.  We will no longer need to fear serpents.  On God’s holy mountain, the prophet envisions, no one will hurt another or destroy another.  And a little child, the innocent, will lead them.  Isn’t it a beautiful picture?  In this environment of justice where peace is permitted to prevail, the cow and the bear graze together.  The lion will even be conditioned to change its diet, so that the lion and the ox eat straw together.  Imagine that kind of world!  In this day when justice exists and peace prevails, the nursing baby shall play over the hole of the asp and a little child shall play near the adder’s den.  In that day of justice and peace, there will be no more hurting of each other, no more destroying, no more war.  The predator and the prey will co-exist in peace and “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  What a paradise envisioned by the ancient seer, Isaiah.

          It is a deep and persistent human hope, isn’t it?  That global peace one day will prevail, that wars and rumors of war will cease to the ends of the earth.  That hope has been held in the hearts of humans for century upon century upon century.  Our choir sings about it.  Unfortunately, the peaceable kingdom envisioned by Isaiah and captured on canvas by Edward Hicks has not yet arrived.  No, our kingdoms today are red in tooth and claw, as Tennyson observed long ago.  Predator still hunts prey not only in the animal kingdom but in the human kingdom as well.  It seems that we learn of some new, ominous chapter in this hunt weekly.  A deranged child takes a gun to school and massacres his classmates.  A power hungry dictator invades a neighboring land and murders civilians and soldiers alike.  Someone gets amped up on conspiracy theories and goes to a church or synagogue or mosque and kills people praying for peace.  Unfortunately, that is our reality.

          So, what do we do?  Do we abandon the vision of Isaiah?  Do we get bigger guns and more destructive bombs?  Do we strike before being struck?  That’s one way to live, and some certainly would advocate for that.  I had a neighbor go out of his way once to tell me that those who beat their swords into plough shares will one day plow the fields of those who don’t.  I was offended, but was he right?  Must we give in to that, or can we believe, as did Edward Hicks, as did the prophet Isaiah, as did our Lord Jesus, that there is another way, a better way, a way of peace and goodwill? 

          Karl Marx used passages like these one to argue that religion is really an opiate for the masses.  The people lived in squalor, went hungry, worked endless hours for hardly anything, and then they watched their children live in squalor, go hungry and work endless hours.  Life was a constant cycle of drudgery and misery.  Just get them to think of the sweet by and by, Marx said.  Just think of that place of peace and joy, and they will forget about the misery of the present.  And most importantly they won’t do anything to disrupt the status quo.  He called religion “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”  Religion is good, he argued.  It is an opiate for the people.  (A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843)

Let me be really honest about this.  Religion can be an opiate.  It can lull people into a stupor where they long for the future and overlook the injustices of the present.  It can be that, or it can be what motivates us to build the peaceable kingdom.  It can be our hope for a better world.  It can be what drives us to work for justice and peace, for a world where every person has a place at the table. 

You all received a letter from me this past week indicating my intention to retire next year.  With this white beard, that should come as no surprise to you.  Kelly will retire in May after nearly 30 distinguished years as a chemistry teacher.  I’m very proud of what she has done and the educational standard she has maintained.  I will follow her in the fall.  But I don’t see a rocking chair in our future.  I have been inspired by how some of you have lived your retirement.  I may not be preparing sermons and visiting hospitals, but I do plan to work for that peaceable kingdom.  That is something I believe in.  So, I think I want to help teach English as a second language.  We’ve met some families from Brazil and have fallen in love with them.  I think what our church does with the international community is amazing.  I want to get down to Lincoln Village and help rehab affordable housing.  I was down there recently for the twentieth anniversary of that work and again was amazed.  You’ve heard of people walking by faith.  They are working by faith.  And it’s making a difference in our city.

Here’s the thing:  we all can do something to bring about the peaceable kingdom, and these texts from Isaiah can be what motivate us to do so.

One of my classes in seminary took a trip that made an impact on me.  Dr. Bill Leonard, who has been here several times, took a group of us to a monastery in St. Meinrad, Indiana.  It was a couple hours’ drive from Louisville.  It seemed a couple of hours from anywhere. It was beautiful.  It looked like an ancient castle perched high upon a hill.  We spent the day visiting with the brothers all of whom wore their long black cassocks.  We worshiped with them.  We ate lunch together.  After lunch, one of the monks delivered a brief talk in which he spoke of changing the world, which seemed rather odd to me since they had chosen to remove themselves from the world.  They were hours from anywhere.  They lived in community with each other and rarely saw others.  So, after the talk I asked him, “How are you going to change the world?  You have withdrawn from the world, so how do you expect to change it?”

I will never forget his response: “We are going to change the world by being the change we hope to see in the world.”

They were the change, and I have to admit that it changed me.  That is something we all can do.  We can be the change.  We can be peaceable.  We can live justly.  And if enough people do that, creation will be at peace.  I close with what is now known as The Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.