2004-05-23 - “Heaven’s Manifesto”

“Heaven's Manifesto”
God's will shall always prevail
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Text: Isaiah 2:1-4; 9:2-7

I'm sure some of you have had the experience I had this last week. On three different occasions I received telephone calls from political parties soliciting my support. There seems to be two common themes running through all three of the parties that phoned me. One is this amazing sense of promise that the world is going to get better if I vote for that party. The second one is not so much a promise as it is a persecution of all those who hold other views than theirs, and how wanting those views are. Everyone gives a prescription for the future, a promise of how the world is going to be better and you just feel like saying: “Yadda, yadda, yadda, heard it all before.”

I was talking to a friend last Monday, and he said, “Well, have you ever taken the initiative to ask them some questions when they call?”

I said: “No. Usually I just try to end the conversation as quickly as possible.”

The next time I decided to seize the moment and one of them gave me an opening. After having pitched her party's political program, this person actually said, “Now, is there anything you would like to know from us?”

I said, “Yes. Where does your candidate stand on God?”

There was this long pause, I could hear papers being flipped. Finally: “I'm not sure that it's actually in our platform.”

I said, “Oh, dear.”

She paused then said, surely off the cuff, “But I'm sure that he's generally in favour.”

This really piqued my imagination. In all the discussions we have about the relationship between God and the state, between religion and politics, why should that question be an embarrassment? In fact, I have just returned from two weeks in the United States of America and you can imagine that in the context of their coming election, the discussion of the relationship between God and the state, between religious leaders' attitudes and the positions that candidates take is becoming a very hot topic. Not so much here in Canada, I'm pleased to say, but nevertheless one that does from time to time rear its head: “What do you think of God?”

This morning, to your disappointment, I'm not going to enter directly into that debate. Rather, I'm going to talk about something that happened 2,700 years ago during the time of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah had a vision that I am calling “Heaven's Manifesto.” You may not believe me when I tell you this but I conjured up the idea for this title and text months before I ever knew that an election would probably be announced today. But God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.

This morning I want to look at Isaiah and the truth of what he said and the vision that he upheld. For we who gather in the house of God on a day like today on a weekend when everyone is relaxing and enjoying themselves, this is our moment to really grasp the vision of Isaiah. As I said, it was written 2,700 years ago in a context very, very different from ours. We cannot extract from it a prescription for how one governs today. There is no way that you can take a direct contextual link from a passage that is so old and apply it uncritically or at prima faci level here in our own time and generation. That would be disingenuous. It would not be fair to Isaiah or the Holy Spirit today.

Having said that, the vision of Isaiah is a vision of the future. It is a vision predicated on an understanding of God. It is precisely that understanding of God and that vision of the future that all people subsequent to Isaiah should hold in their hearts and minds. The two passages we heard this morning are usually read at Christmastime. Actually, I was talking to our music director, Edward Connell when we were planning this service and he said, “Nearly every time you look at this text there is an alignment to a Christmas piece.”

That should not be the case, for the vision of Isaiah is for all time, for all aeons and for all moments. The text has parallels elsewhere in the Scripture. There are parallels to the Book of Micah 4:1-3 that are almost identical to Isaiah 2:1-4. That tells us that this text probably existed even before Isaiah and Micah and was very popular within the temple in Jerusalem. It was a passage of a vision of hope for the people of Judah. It was an image in their minds of what God was going to do someday. It was a powerful image that held the people of God together as they looked to the future.

Now, there are parallels in the way it talks about Mount Zion. In Mesopotamia there were the ziggurats, the little mountains rising up from the plains at which many of the pagans worshipped. The Canaanites would worship at Mount Zaphon, for it was a similar type of mountain to Zion, not really that high, but of symbolic importance and note. But what made the vision of Isaiah and Micah different is that it was not talking about the worship of a mountain, it was not the worship of the people, it was the everlasting worship of the true God. Times and aeons will come and go but there is an everlasting sovereignty, an everlasting power to the God of Israel and the God of Judah and the God of Jerusalem.

In articulating heaven's manifesto, Isaiah is really manifesting one great singular thought: the sovereignty of God and the vision that God's people need to have of that sovereignty, regardless of the era in which they live. To help us understand the power of this vision and how important it is for Christians in our day and age to have it, I am using a poem written 200 years ago by the English poet William Cowper. In it there are three parts that speak of the image of Isaiah:

In other words, in the ebb and flow of the aeons, God's sovereign will will always be manifested. God cannot be mocked. His vision can never be derailed.

Now, the vision that Isaiah and Micah had of what the nature of that would look like was very simple: It was that God would reign in His peace, in His shalom. The kingdoms of the earth would know that God is the God of every person, that God in His sovereign will is God of all. There is also this image that the instruments of war and human conflict, the disputations between warring nations and cultures would evaporate before the will of the one sovereign God. The swords would be turned into pruning hooks, instruments of war would become instruments of economic development. The disputes among nations would be mediated by the power of Yahweh, Judah's God would be the God of all the nations. The God of Mount Zion would rule over all.

Then, as we move into Chapter Nine, we get the verse that we often associate with Christmas. It is that this reign is going to come about through a child, the wonderful counsellor, the mighty king. Now, there have been many debates as to precisely whom Isaiah is talking about here, whether it is the coronation of Hezekiah or the birth of a crown prince in 732. There are different schools of thought, but what is evident is that regardless of the child or regardless of the aeon God will prevail, even in the meekest and through the meekest.

As Christians we look at this and we see none other, of course, than Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord, the Prince of Peace. We see in this passage the presence of Christ, and when we look at the world around us with its warring factions, with its swords that are clashing and being used for the destruction of others in ungodly ways, we still hold out the vision Yahweh that God the sovereign will not be mocked, that God's vision will ultimately prevail.

Last week at the Kennedy School of Government I attended an afternoon tea where one of the lecturers was making a presentation. During the question and answer period he was asked, “What is it that seems so often to be lacking in the leadership of the world today?”

And the political response by the lecturer was really quite soothing and he sort of skated over the issue. But there was another man who was also giving a presentation and although he wasn't asked the question, he answered, “I'll tell you what is missing, it's vision.” Vision of the kind of world that we want to move towards. Vision of the kind of image that we feel humanity needs to be molded into. A vision of a future that is born out of hope. That's what is needed. That is what politicians need to grasp.

The more I thought of that, with this passage of Isaiah on my mind, the more I thought, “Isaiah is right. Without a vision people perish and without the vision of God's will and God's purpose people perish.” It is God's vision that is the vision of peace. It is God's vision that is the image of shalom.

In Africa I used to watch the incredible animal called the impala. The impala was able to leap 10 feet high and could sometimes sustain that leap for over 30 feet. When you see an impala in flight it is one of the most awesome things in the whole of creation. But if you take an impala and put it into a zoo or a farm, you need only build a fence that is three feet high. The remarkable thing about the impala is that it cannot leap over a three-foot fence even though it can leap 10 feet into the air. Why? Because an impala will never leap when it cannot see where its feet are going to land.

In other words, you can have all the strength, all the might and all the power, but if you have no vision you can't have freedom. If you have no vision you have no direction. If you have no vision you have no peace. The purpose of Isaiah, the purpose of the will of the church is to hold out God's vision regardless of what the world is doing, and pray that it will be embraced.

It also needs imagination. Cowper goes on:

.

I think there are many people in this world, my friends who when they think of God, think of a frowning providence. Their imagination becomes clouded by the thought that God is somehow dark. Providential, yes, but dark. One of the reasons why we're often afraid to even talk about God is that somehow the very invocation of His name will trouble us or trouble others. Cowper is right; God might have had a frowning providence when He had to criticize Israel for the way it had gone off the map. As Judah had become corrupt, as Jerusalem had ceased to be a place of pure worship Isaiah had to prophecy with powerful words. But always, underneath and even behind these words, is grace. Always, undergirding this is the power and the mercy of God's love. As Christians, we need to have that imagination.

Martin Luther King put it so beautifully: “We may not be able to understand the finite problems that are around us but we must never lose the infinite hope that comes from God.” We need imagination. We need the imagination that sees the world through the eyes of God. Now, first imagining peace and justice and righteousness will not necessarily bring them about, but my friends, it will not come about without imagination, without a vision of what constitutes God's kingdom and reign.

On a very wet day a week ago last Wednesday, I know I was on study leave but I decided to stay in my room and watch a video. I chose The Pianist. It's a story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, one of the 20^th century's greatest pianists who was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis. His family was murdered, but he finally escaped. Szpilman hid with some of his friends, in a room when the Nazis were trying to trap him. Szpilman was told to remain very quiet while he was incarcerated. He was told, “Remember, you are in the lion's den.”

Across the road was a police station. Down below was a restaurant where Nazis gathered. He had to remain absolutely quiet. So this great pianist goes into an adjacent room and sees a piano. He hasn't played in a long time. He peels back the green felt from the piano and you can hear the orchestra start to play and you can see Szpilman reach out and touch the keyboard. Suddenly you hear a piano playing, but you notice that Szpilman's fingers are not actually touching the keys. He's sitting back, closing his eyes, and you realize then that the music in fact is in his mind. He's not playing the piano at all, but he's imagining it. He gets caught up in the rapture of the beautiful music and it fills the air. He doesn't need to play it - he can hear it. He doesn't need to touch it - in his heart he can feel it. Such is the power of imagination.

My friends, as the children of God, we need that imagination - the imagination of faith, the imagination of the vision of Isaiah. As we look at the conflicts of the world and the problems that beset it, so too, it seem to me that if we do not have vision, then we perish.

There is one last thing, and it is hope. These are the words that Cowper finishes with:

God is a God who reveals Himself. God is a God who is His own interpreter. As we look at the times and the seasons, as we see pictures in the media of abuses and death, as we look at the challenges that are facing our nation, it almost might appear to some who don't believe that somehow God has erred. But for those who have the vision of Isaiah, for those who hold on to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, God never errs. He is His own interpreter. God will reveal His purpose.

I've often wondered, and I asked somebody this last week: “Where does God rule on earth?” Does God rule on earth only, as some suggest, when there is a theocracy running everything? Is there only the rule of God when there is a monarchy who runs everything? (I thought this was fascinating on Victoria Day). I have been reading so many of the great quotes of Queen Victoria. She really could spin a yarn, could Vic. I love this one. She was once asked about others' opinions of her. She said, “It is not important what others think of me but what I think of them.”

Is the kingdom of God, is the reign of God actualized when we have a theocracy, when we have religious people running the country? Oh, there are some throughout the world who are trying that. But they have a vision more like Victoria than Isaiah. Theocracies always become the reign of people in the name of God, rather than the reign of God through people.

Is the reign of God it always when every government does everything in accordance with Christian principles, as if there are such things. When the government does a good thing do we then say, “See, there it is, there is the reign of God.” No. God reigns through His Word. That's how God reigns. God reigns through His Word and His Son. That means that no matter what the machinations of human beings are, God still reigns, regardless, sovereign, through the word. That's why on a day like today we need to hear that word - the word of the sovereignty of God in Isaiah. But it is sometimes difficult, isn't it? It is difficult to believe that God's will and purpose is still done.

A parable told by Henri Nouwen, one of the most moving parables that I have ever read, tells the story of twins in the womb. These twins, a boy and a girl, are talking to each other. The little girl says to the little boy, “You know, I believe that there will be life after birth.”

The little boy says, “No, I don't think there will be life after birth. This is all there is. Anyway, why would you want to change things? We're being fed, it's nice and cozy and warm, and we're together.”

The little girl says, “But there must be something more than the darkness of this womb.”

The little boy responded, “No, I don't think there is. I think all there is is the darkness and we've just got to get used to it, so why don't you just keep quiet about this birthing thing and leave me alone?”

The little girl says, “Actually, I think there is something more that you need to know. I think there is a mother.”

The little boy said, “Don't be so daft, there is no mother. All there is is this womb, this dark place, feeding and stuff like that. I don't believe there is anything more. I can't see how you can believe that there is.”

The little girl says, “No, no, no. I believe that there is a mother and I believe, you know when you feel that squeezing thing going on? I think something is actually going to happen.”

The little boy says, “I hate that squeezing thing. It's really difficult. I feel the pressure of being in here.”

The little girl says, “I know, I feel the pressure too. But I believe that good things will come from that. I believe something marvellous will occur because I believe that those squeezings are actually getting us ready for the first time to see our mother face to face.”

The little boy remained silent. He didn't know what to say. And then they were born.

My friends, life, the conflicts of the world are like squeezing and darkness. It appears that we will never see our God face to face. It seems that “God works in mysterious ways,” as Cowper said, “His wonders to perform.” We live in difficult times, but we mustn't lose the vision of Isaiah, the vision of Jesus that God's sovereign shall always eventually and forever prevail. This is heaven's manifesto. Amen.