“THE
PEACEABLE KINGDOM”
|
A
sermon preached at the Readings:
Isa 11:1-10, Mt 3:1-6 |
“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with
the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead
them”.(Isa 11:6)
In Tim Pears’
novel “A
Revolution in the Sun”
members of a family in Brixton are decorating their flat for Christmas
and making a nativity tableau:
“Rebecca
made a stable out of a cardboard box,
and Ben peopled the nativity scene with figures Rebecca found in
Woolworths.
Animals were easy – a hippo stood in the byre ,
a giraffe kept watch like a periscope though a hole in the roof,
and the lion did lay down with the lamb in Brixton –
humans less so: three spice girls took the place of wise men,
whilst Wallace and Grommit [replaced
Mary and Joseph].”
We
all know there were no giraffes at Bethlehem –
but do you recall which animals are actually mentioned
in the Biblical story of the stable at Bethlehem?
The
answer is that animals are not mentioned at all -
But
sanctified imagination has traditionally included animals at the cribside.
Maybe the animals crept in to add colour to the story –
but they also make a very important point –
that Christ came for the whole of creation.
·
So Mediaeval Franciscan writers talk of the ox and the ass
breathing on the Christchild to keep him warm.
·
In Hamlet Shakespeare refers to the cockerel singing all night long on
Christmas Eve –
for is not Christmas the dawning of God’s eternal light into a dark world?
·
And Thomas Hardy has a famous poem about the oxen –
Not so long ago it was widely believed that each
year on Christmas Eve
the oxen would get down on their knees in their stalls as midnight
approaches.
Thomas Hardy recalls how in the days of his childhood
he like everyone else believed that the oxen knelt in prayer on Christmas
Eve.
Writing as an old man in a rationalist age,
he says that modern men don’t believe such fanciful things –
though clearly he still wishes he could:
So fair a fancy few would
weave
In these years!
Yet I feel
If someone said, on Christmas Eve,
”Come, see the oxen kneel,
“In the
lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so”.
Advent is a time of hope –
Yes
we know what sort of world we actually live in –
Where
neither oxen nor humans bow the knee as they might –
And
where lions devour lambs and powerful men oppress the weak.
We
are sensible, knowledgeable people, and know that all this is true.
And
yet at Advent we live between what is and what is to be,
what we know in the present and what we hope for in the future -
And
what we hope for in Advent is that day
when all creation shall acknowledge God’s glory, and
The
wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
Edward Hicks was a famous American Quaker
Minister and artist in the early 19th C.
He
painted a huge number of canvases on the same subject -
The
Peaceable Kingdom.
They showed the ox and the lion etc being led by a
child.
The vision of the ultimate Kingdom
of love and peace promised in Christ –
But – and here is the for me the most interesting
bit of his pictures -
Time and again in the background of the picture
there are white American settlers and native Indians –
a portrait of the Quaker statesman Wm Penn, founder of Pennsylvania,
making peace with the native Indian chiefs.
The
message is clear –
Christ
is the one who will ultimately bring peace to the whole of creation –
that will be the Peaceable Kingdom of Heaven.
We
should hold fast to that vision, that dream, for the
future.
But
in the meantime, we have to start building that dream here and now –
We
may never get all the way –
Indeed
in this life we know that lions cannot be vegetarian
and that the whole food chain cannot work if species do not prey on each other
–
The
beasts of forest and field lying down together
can never be more than a vision of God’s ultimate reign –
AND
YET – in the background Edward Hicks’ compatriots
were making peace with the native Americans –
a tangible and real symbol, foretaste, prefiguring, in this world,
of that Kingdom of heaven yet to come.
Hicks knew that not only
could you have a great vision –
you could also start living it – albeit in part.
”Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”
And we can start living the
dream, working for the dream, in 1001 ways today –
·
Samuel Ho’s piece in Forward this month
talks about the reunification of Germany
and his hopes for the reunification of Korea –
a dream to work for –
all part of our dream of peace and unity within and between the nations.
·
In the foyer we have placed an amazing picture depicting a Spiritual
family tree –
with every branch, every denomination and sect of Christianity, Judaism and
Islam
all growing from their common ancestor Abraham.
Thanks to Denis Bray and his daughter for the picture –
do have a look at it after the service –
in these days of on-going anti-Semitism
and growing Islamophobia
it encourages us to celebrate what unites us
and remember that we are called as a human race to be one people under one God
–
·
There are Amnesty International booklets at the rear of the Church -
Please send Christmas greetings to sponsored Prisoners of Conscience -
another way to work for the dream of all living together in freedom.
·
After service you are invited to give to our Farm Africa “Buy a Goat”
appeal –
please give generously to help the farmers of East Africa and elsewhere.
If the lion is to stop devouring the lamb,
so must the rich North stop devouring the poor South in our divided
planet.
There is no better way to
prepare for and proclaim the coming Kingdom of Heaven
than to starting living it here on earth.
So lets start living the
dream of love and peace and justice –
Then shall we find ourselves
part of that glorious company
gathered around the child of Bethlehem.
And then shall we be blessed
indeed,
with just a glimpse – but what a glimpse! – of Heaven
itself.