Isaiah 11:1-10 Righteousness
Matthew 3:1-12 John the Baptizer
I'd like to buy the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves.
Chorus:
I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
And keep it company
That's the real thing.
That was a great commercial for coke. If you are old enough you can remember watching television and seeing young people gathered from throughout the world, each holding a bottle of coke, and singing about a world of peace and "perfect harmony." If life were only that easy. Let’s just sit down and have a coke ---- and everything will be all right.
Perfect harmony. That is the vision we have from the prophet Isaiah this week. Perhaps you are familiar with John Hicks’ 19th century American paintings of the "Peaceable Kingdom" in which all the wild animals of the world are at peace and a child sits among them. Perhaps some of you will be sending Christmas cards with pictures of a lion and a lamb sitting with one another "in perfect harmony."
This is our dream. This was Isaiah’s dream. A Vision of Perfect Harmony. This is also the vision of our United Church of Christ. Our denomination has even produced a couple television commercials touting our own version of "perfect harmony." Many of you have seen these commercials here at church. Perhaps you saw one on television this week. They end with a vision of "perfect harmony" in which a group of smiling people of various ages and life situations stands before us, inviting us into a warm, loving fellowship.
But before that we see some "dis-harmony." Two bouncers are standing in front of a church telling some they may enter and others they may not. They are the straw men, so to speak, against the message which shows on the screen: "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." And then an voice announces: "The United Church of Christ: no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here."
If you happen to have followed news reports this week, you know about the controversy that erupted when NBC and CBS refused to air the ad because it was "too controversial." The two networks seemed especially concerned about the inclusion of people in the commercial who looked like they might be gay or lesbian. Of course there is controversy in our country about the issue of homosexuality.
A couple weeks ago I explained how both my father and I grew in our understanding of this issue. There was some "dis-harmony," some discomfort for both of us as we attempted to work through our feelings and thoughts on the Bible, sex, and .... life. I still don’t feel completely comfortable, but I’m also not the kind of person who is comfortable with controversy. I’d like everything to go along smoothly and have everybody be happy.
But we know that is not how God made life for us. It would be nice is everyone were an adorable little baby ---- just like Logan and Heavyn. But even babies have dirty diapers and they grow up to be teenagers, and then young adults, and finally older adults demanding extra care and concern ------ and sometimes causing controversy.
Isaiah knew this part of life when he shared his vision of "perfect harmony." As he shared this vision he was all the more conscious of the less than perfect harmony in which he lived: a nation divided and threatened from outside its borders. John the Baptizer was living in a land and age without perfect harmony. He was living under an oppressive occupying force and in a society which needed some straightening out. In fact he made some people downright uncomfortable when he preached. He too looked for the coming of God’s reign of peace and justice under a messiah whose sandals he said he was unworthy to carry.
Like Isaiah and John we also recognize that we live in a far from perfect time. Sometimes we aren’t very harmonious ---- even in the church. Someone has said that there are no fights like church fights. Our nation just went through a divisive political struggle. It looks like that struggle will continue. Over in Iraq there are hopes for a better future, but right now it’s pretty dicey.
So, here we are in church. We want to be an open, friendly, welcoming church. I believe that is the image we have of ourselves. We would like to live in "perfect harmony." We want to allow different understandings of God, the Bible and life in our church. Sometimes we disagree about how the Bible should be interpreted, how big our budget should be, and how to welcome friends who may be different than we are. But we communicate. Why in our church I have even seen with my own eyes self-avowed, practicing Democrats and self-avowed, practicing Republicans sitting down and smiling at one another! Perhaps we learn from one another that we can’t pigeon hole one another into stereotypical slots.
This makes me think of a conversation that took place when a group of UCC ministers was discussing our new publicity campaign. One of my colleagues made two sage observations:
1. First she noted that people reflect a spectrum of attitudes on homosexuality ---- ranging from homophobes like the group from Kansas that spouts hate and homophiles like those of us who have no problem with gay marriage. For many folks their feelings are somewhere in between. It’s not black or white, but gray. I think she’s right. Then the challenge for us is to communicate among these differing views without chopping off one another’s heads.
2. Secondly, my colleague noted that in her upper middle class congregation people would have no problem welcoming someone of a different ethnic group or sexual orientation. Their problem would be welcoming someone with decidedly different cultural tastes and from a decidedly lower economic level.
Well, there is a challenge for all of us. I would have to say that one of the blessings of living in a small town and being a member of a church like ours is that we can’t divide ourselves up and we are forced to interact with one another, no matter what our job or social standing is. It may even mean that we welcome one another ---- no matter what our sexual orientation is.
This, I believe, is the promise and challenge before us: To dream the big dream of "perfect harmony" even as we confess our participation in a less than perfect world and a less than perfect church.
One of the positive truths we like to proclaim about the United Church of Christ in Neillsville is that we welcome all, no matter who you are or where you are in life’s journey, to the Lord’s Table ------ precisely because we recognize that it is the Lord’s table and not our table. So, we say welcome ---- guests and members, adults and children, rich and poor, certain and doubting, gay and straight, single and married, silent sports enthusiasts and noisy sports enthusiasts. Come to the table of grace. Come to the heavenly banquets and catch God’s vision of "perfect harmony."
