An Unexpected Hope; An Unexpected Home
Matthew
24:36-44December 1,
2013Advent means “coming.” This is literally true. Culturally, well Advent really doesn’t mean anything at all.
Culturally, it’s all Christmas all of the time from, oh, about Halloween on with
the briefest of breaks for gobbling some Turkey. The Christmas decorations are
up. The Christmas sales are on. The Christmas music? You can find dozens upon
dozens of Pandora Christmas stations ranging from the Celtic Christmas to the
Swinging and the Soulful.
When I flipped on randomly last week, the first song that played was I’ll Be Home for Christmas. What’s more classic than that? It carries the central cultural understanding of Christmas: come home! Specifically, it’s about coming home to a traditional family and to the kind of happiness that you can wrap up and put a bow on.Interestingly, that’s a central theme for Isaiah’s prophetic vision, as well. But what a different notion of homecoming we hear in the prophet’s voice than in the carol’s of pop-culture Christmas.It’s not surprising that some notion of homecoming would lie close to the prophet’s heart. After all, so many of the prophetic texts in scripture give voice to the longings of a people living in exile who want nothing so much as to go home. We hear, in much of Isaiah, the pain of a people living in Babylon longing for Jerusalem.But the nature of home in scripture is twisted free of our Hallmark version, and the nature of family in the gospels, in particular, breaks decidedly with tribal and traditional notions of kinship.As Old Testament scholar John Holbert suggests, the key lies in new ways of seeing. The Isaiah text, which we read in part as a call to worship this morning, begins like this:“The word that Isaiah, son of Amoz, envisioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”Isaiah “sees” the word of the Lord. He sees this calling from God. And what does it look like, this invitation “home,” that Isaiah sees?Probably not like “snow and mistletoe and presents ‘round the tree.”What does this homecoming look like? Isaiah sees the “nations” flowing to Jerusalem. The nations – goyim, in the Hebrew – means explicitly all those non-Jewish people. In other words, YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses who called forth, specifically, the chosen people of Israel, this God turns out also to be God of all nations.Guess who’s coming to Christmas dinner? Everybody!More than that: guess what they’re bringing with them! All the nations are coming. In other words, people from all over. People who historically don’t really like each other. Might be Palestinians and Israelis. Might be Hutus and Tutsis. Might be Hatfields and McCoys.And they’re bringing swords.If this were a made-for-TV drama we’d fade to black and cut to a commercial right here. So, now for a word from our sponsor:The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour! Tune in for a special report at 11:00.
Right. Our “sponsor.” This Jesus guy. Whose singular message is simple: love one another as I have loved you.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.Everybody is coming! They’re bringing swords! And they are coming to the house of the Lord, to a place centered on a table prepared by One who commands, simply, love one another.
At this place, God will speak a word of judgment, Isaiah says, and, responding to that word from God the nations will beat their swords into plowshares – from weapons of war to instruments of plenty, of abundance, of stewarding creation for the feeding of the people.That is the vision of Isaiah. That is the homecoming he sees, and that he invites us to see, as well.When will this vision become reality? When will this unexpected hope meet some unexpected hour?It depends upon our ability to see. As Holbert suggests, “Rather than thinking about this as some future time, it is helpful to imagine this as a vision always available to those whose eyes have been opened to the newer reality of God. You can always go to this home, if you can see it, envision it – and in the power of God you can.”Advent means coming. Perhaps it is an unexpected homecoming, perhaps it is an unexpected hope-coming. We are invited to come to the hope of this table, along with all the nations.I dropped the Hatfields and McCoys in, coyly, to an illustration above. You probably recall those as the family names made infamous in their decades long feud in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia – a running battle that stretched across three decades and claimed dozens of lives.In the late 1990s I spent time helping out in a small Presbyterian church in Phelps, Kentucky – deep in the coalfields of Appalachia. I will never forget the first time we visited the church. The pastor, a delightful elderly man named DeWitt, was showing us around the church. He took us to the Sunday School area, and the room where the adult class met had a plaque by the door with the names of all the members of the class. On that signboard, members of the same Sunday school class, were the names Hatfield and McCoy. And these were the real McCoys ... and the real Hatfields.I have savored that brief moment ever since, because it is an image of the kingdom of God.People will come. From east and west, north and south, to sit together at this table. Hatfields and McCoys. Jews and Gentiles. Protestants and Catholics. Muslims and Hindus. Black and white and straight and gay. At one table in the kindom of God.We live out our little part in the great drama of salvation right here. In this very moment, in this place, at this table. A broken world yearns most deeply for evidence that such a thing is possible.
That is why we gather. That is why we invite others to join us.
Advent means coming. But what is coming is already in our midst, if we but open our eyes to see it. The word that Isaiah envisioned – hope coming home – we are invited to see as well at this table. So come. Taste and see: Emmanuel. God-with-us. Salvation and shalom. Amen.
When I flipped on randomly last week, the first song that played was I’ll Be Home for Christmas. What’s more classic than that? It carries the central cultural understanding of Christmas: come home! Specifically, it’s about coming home to a traditional family and to the kind of happiness that you can wrap up and put a bow on.Interestingly, that’s a central theme for Isaiah’s prophetic vision, as well. But what a different notion of homecoming we hear in the prophet’s voice than in the carol’s of pop-culture Christmas.It’s not surprising that some notion of homecoming would lie close to the prophet’s heart. After all, so many of the prophetic texts in scripture give voice to the longings of a people living in exile who want nothing so much as to go home. We hear, in much of Isaiah, the pain of a people living in Babylon longing for Jerusalem.But the nature of home in scripture is twisted free of our Hallmark version, and the nature of family in the gospels, in particular, breaks decidedly with tribal and traditional notions of kinship.As Old Testament scholar John Holbert suggests, the key lies in new ways of seeing. The Isaiah text, which we read in part as a call to worship this morning, begins like this:“The word that Isaiah, son of Amoz, envisioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”Isaiah “sees” the word of the Lord. He sees this calling from God. And what does it look like, this invitation “home,” that Isaiah sees?Probably not like “snow and mistletoe and presents ‘round the tree.”What does this homecoming look like? Isaiah sees the “nations” flowing to Jerusalem. The nations – goyim, in the Hebrew – means explicitly all those non-Jewish people. In other words, YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses who called forth, specifically, the chosen people of Israel, this God turns out also to be God of all nations.Guess who’s coming to Christmas dinner? Everybody!More than that: guess what they’re bringing with them! All the nations are coming. In other words, people from all over. People who historically don’t really like each other. Might be Palestinians and Israelis. Might be Hutus and Tutsis. Might be Hatfields and McCoys.And they’re bringing swords.If this were a made-for-TV drama we’d fade to black and cut to a commercial right here. So, now for a word from our sponsor:The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour! Tune in for a special report at 11:00.
Right. Our “sponsor.” This Jesus guy. Whose singular message is simple: love one another as I have loved you.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.Everybody is coming! They’re bringing swords! And they are coming to the house of the Lord, to a place centered on a table prepared by One who commands, simply, love one another.
At this place, God will speak a word of judgment, Isaiah says, and, responding to that word from God the nations will beat their swords into plowshares – from weapons of war to instruments of plenty, of abundance, of stewarding creation for the feeding of the people.That is the vision of Isaiah. That is the homecoming he sees, and that he invites us to see, as well.When will this vision become reality? When will this unexpected hope meet some unexpected hour?It depends upon our ability to see. As Holbert suggests, “Rather than thinking about this as some future time, it is helpful to imagine this as a vision always available to those whose eyes have been opened to the newer reality of God. You can always go to this home, if you can see it, envision it – and in the power of God you can.”Advent means coming. Perhaps it is an unexpected homecoming, perhaps it is an unexpected hope-coming. We are invited to come to the hope of this table, along with all the nations.I dropped the Hatfields and McCoys in, coyly, to an illustration above. You probably recall those as the family names made infamous in their decades long feud in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia – a running battle that stretched across three decades and claimed dozens of lives.In the late 1990s I spent time helping out in a small Presbyterian church in Phelps, Kentucky – deep in the coalfields of Appalachia. I will never forget the first time we visited the church. The pastor, a delightful elderly man named DeWitt, was showing us around the church. He took us to the Sunday School area, and the room where the adult class met had a plaque by the door with the names of all the members of the class. On that signboard, members of the same Sunday school class, were the names Hatfield and McCoy. And these were the real McCoys ... and the real Hatfields.I have savored that brief moment ever since, because it is an image of the kingdom of God.People will come. From east and west, north and south, to sit together at this table. Hatfields and McCoys. Jews and Gentiles. Protestants and Catholics. Muslims and Hindus. Black and white and straight and gay. At one table in the kindom of God.We live out our little part in the great drama of salvation right here. In this very moment, in this place, at this table. A broken world yearns most deeply for evidence that such a thing is possible.
That is why we gather. That is why we invite others to join us.
Advent means coming. But what is coming is already in our midst, if we but open our eyes to see it. The word that Isaiah envisioned – hope coming home – we are invited to see as well at this table. So come. Taste and see: Emmanuel. God-with-us. Salvation and shalom. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
6:19 AM
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