Isaiah 11:1-10
“The Challenge of Living in Harmony”
Remember the riots in Los Angeles back in…I believe it was 1994?
Remember what Rodney King said during those riots?
“Why can’t we all just get along?”
That’s a very good question that has been haunting human kind ever since the Fall.
“Why can’t we all just get along?”
There is a hunger for harmony in our world, but we just can’t seem to find a way to feed it.
There is a hunger for hope.
We often find ourselves in all kinds of predicaments and see no way out.
Many teenagers who sense they are different from others choose suicide because they have no hope of acceptance by their family or peers or church.
Many women stay in abusive relationships because they have come to believe they can find no safe way out.
Many folks fall victim to various addictions and have no sense that there is hope for overcoming their slow slide toward death.
Many become hopeless because of mental or physical handicaps that make coping with the simple tasks of everyday life a chore.
Our life situations and the structures of politics, economics, and cultural attitudes have pushed many of us into the camp of hopelessness.
This is to be in hell, and Dante rightly depicted a sign fronting the gates of hell reading: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
There is also great hunger for peace.
And look at our world today!
Tensions abound.
Maybe there is some tension between some people you love… …some friends getting a divorce…
…some members of your family who are in conflict with one another…
…or maybe someone has been separated from your family for some reason.
And what about our community?
There always seems to be a war going on somewhere.
The whole world is grieving because war is raging in the part of the world that we are accustomed to calling “Holy Land.”
We often hear people say, “Those people have been fighting over there for thousands of years and they always will.”
Let’s not give in to that kind of attitude.
Let’s not give in to the attitude that there is no hope for harmony.
Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah came on the scene to bring prophecies of salvation to people who were beaten down by the turmoil of war, by the lost sense of hope.
This morning’s Old Testament Lesson begins by saying: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”
Have you ever cut down a tree, thinking you were done with it…
…only to find the following spring that the tree you had left for dead now has a new shoot growing out of the stump?
This is God’s way of saying, hope is on the way, peace is on the way, harmony is on the way, new life is on the way…
…What you thought was dead is actually very much alive!
The royal family…the family of David had been cut down, and only a stump was left.
Yet Isaiah says it shall sprout again.
David’s father was named Jesse, and Isaiah is telling us that Jesus the Savior is going to bring peace and He is going to come from the household of David.
Jesus is that “Branch” on Whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest…and yes, a day will come when “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat…the cow will feed with the bear…the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra and the young child will put his hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy…for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Peace and harmony will reign—even among the animals.
What we see here is a restoration of paradise, that is, a return to Eden—where the results of the Fall are reversed.
The separation between God and God’s Creation will be overcome.
In Revelation 5:5 we are told: “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.”
We are living in the last days, and amazingly enough, with all the tension and turmoil which we are surrounded with—we are living in the time of hope.
Because Jesus has come.
And He has overcome sin and death.
And He has taught us how to live in harmony…
…He has called us out of the world of darkness and despair into the world of triumphing hope!!!
If Jesus is your Lord and Savior, then you live as a part of God’s kingdom right here and right now.
What was it that Jesus told the disciples in John Chapter 14?
He told them that the Father would send the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name…and He will “teach you all things…”
He also said: “and if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
Has God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit made His home in our hearts, in our lives?
If so, what Jesus said to the disciples goes for us as well: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Virginia read from Paul’s letter to the Romans a little while ago.
In that passage Paul says: May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you…”
Paul sees the reconciliation of humankind as a part of the vision of the good future toward which God is moving us and also as part of the hope that should already be shaping our lives as people living in God’s Kingdom!
Paul stresses that, in the Church, all kinds of people can and should be reconciled and live together in harmony and mutual love.
Paul stresses that the Church should and can live in the world in a way that we can be both an example and agents of the hope and peace God offers the entire world right here and right now!
And this is a challenge.
Because there are differences within the church…
…differences of gifts…
…differences of disposition…
…differences of opinion.
But there is room for these differences.
When different people live together in love…”with one heart”… our differences become something to celebrate…not fight about!!!
Our differences are truly sources of enrichment and creativity as we live as witnesses to the world of God’s new age!!!
The problem behind the problem in many of our conflicts is some incompleteness in ourselves…
…some bitterness…
…some anxiety…
…some lack of self-esteem that makes us defensive.
But as we move into a trusting relationship with the living God, we find God healing our hurts and taking away our bitterness…
…replacing our anxiety with the ability to trust…
…affirming our personhood with God’s love, and, in more ways than we can list, moving us toward wholeness and harmony.
Jesus said: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”
And this is what we are called when we give our hearts and lives to Christ…
…children of God!
We are to be reconciled to those people with whom we are in conflict in our personal lives and relationships.
We know who those people are, don’t we?
They are the people who once did something hurtful to us and whom we have not forgiven.
They are friends or relatives from whom we have grown away.
How would it be if each one of us made a list of the people with whom we need to be reconciled with, and make some real effort to offer a hand of friendship to each of them?
And what about the communities in which we work and live?
What would happen if every time we hear someone “bad mouthing” someone else…we try to help them work things out with the person.
What would happen if every time we hear someone depersonalizing and berating members of another race or group…
…we would say something like: “They are people just like we are,” or “Let’s try to look at things from their point of view.”
As children of God, we must look for every opportunity to bring Christ’s love into every conflict.
Is there anything we can do to help bring about harmony and peace between nations in conflict in our world?
We can teach the way of love that Jesus teaches us.
We should do all we can to teach all nations, beginning with our own, the way of respect for others, commitment to justice for all, and willingness to dare to trust and to work toward reconciliation.
This is what we are called to do—we are called to participate in what God is doing.
In a few weeks, when we will again hear the Scriptures read in which the angel spoke of peace on earth and good will among people, we may still experience sadness because we know that the peace we hope for has not yet come to completion in our world or to our families or to our lives.
But sadness will not have to lead to despair.
A shoot has come up from the stump of Jesse…
… “The wolf will live with the lamb…
…The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together…
This gives us reason for hope!!!
As Paul finishes in our Epistle Lesson for this morning: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
