Is 25:1-9

12 October 2008

“An Evolution of Hope and Love”

A couple of weeks ago, I preached about the prophet Ezekiel, who I said might be the poster boy for those receiving strange directions from God. For the past few weeks in Sunday school, we’ve been studying some mystics of the church; some of whom might be considered strange characters themselves.

In a nutshell, prophets are those who speak God’s word to their society, especially when the people are straying. Mystics are those who reach deep levels of prayer, and they have experiences that are difficult to put into words. Some prophets are mystics, and some mystics are prophets, but the two aren’t necessarily the same thing.

We started with the apostle Paul. We then looked at Hildegard of Bingen, who excelled in many fields, including music and the use of herbs. Next up was Francis of Assisi, well-known for his commitment to peace and love of animals. After that, we discussed Julian of Norwich, who, while the Black Death killed one-third of Europe, affirmed, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

Then we came to the French priest and scientist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who lived from 1881 to 1955. For a long time, he’s been one of my favorite theologians—one of my heroes since the mid-80s. But as with other people I admire, I’ve had trouble figuring him out. (That seems to be a requirement!) I’ve been rediscovering him in André Dupleix’s book 15 Days of Prayer with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

I want to share with you a prayer of his: “My God, I admit that for a long time I have been and still am [regrettably], unwilling to love my neighbor…My God, make it so that I reflect your face to the lives of others…Jesus, Savior of human activity, to whom you bring a reason to act, Savior of human suffering to whom you bring a value to life, be the salvation of human unity by forcing us to abandon our smallness and, with your support, to venture out onto the unknown ocean of charity,” the unknown ocean of love.[1]

When I first discovered this priest and paleontologist, I was fascinated. He’s the living embodiment of faith and science that the 20th century had discarded.

Teilhard is radically Christocentric, Christ-centered. In fact, he sees Christ at the very heart of matter itself. His deeply Trinitarian perspective sets him apart from many of the so-called “new age” movements that claim him as a forerunner. Some such people take ideas of his that they like, but his devotion to the Holy Trinity is one they want no part of!

It can be difficult to understand some of his writing, since at times he uses scientific terminology, as well as words to which he gives his own little “spin.” So reading Teilhard requires a bit of effort, and that likely explains why he’s so often misunderstood.

I included that prayer because love, and the hope for the future it creates, is one of Teilhard’s key themes. As I hope you heard, he admits that the path isn’t a smooth one. He prays that we (along with himself) can abandon our smallness and become more willing to love our neighbor.

At heart, Teilhard is a visionary; he sees everything coming together in Christ. He takes his cue from the apostle Paul, a great visionary of the New Testament. Paul says in Colossians 1 that Christ “is before all things, and in him all things hold together…and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things” (vv. 17, 20). That’s an ongoing process; it hasn’t been completed. For years, I couldn’t make much sense of Paul’s words there; I now have the very faintest glimmer of insight into them!

Our Old Testament reading gives us a glimpse into the mind of another visionary. And he, too, speaks of something that is ongoing.

This comes from the part of the book of Isaiah known as the “Apocalypse of Isaiah.” That’s chapters 24 to 27. People have argued about when this should be dated. Some say it’s at the time of the prophet Isaiah himself, in the eighth century B.C. Others say it’s written during, or right after, the exile into Babylon. Still others see evidence for a time even later, after the Greek army of Alexander the Great sweeps through the Middle East.

I suppose I would lean toward that middle group, who see it as dealing with the exile. But with a nod to that early bunch, I’ll simply call the author “Isaiah.” Still, having said all that, the precise date of these two poems of hope has only a minor influence on their meaning.

There’s something that speaks for itself, and it’s the wonderful language of this poetry. I like the titles that Otto Kaiser gives each poem. He calls the first one, which ends at verse 5, “The World Capital Falls.” The second one he entitles, “The Feast for the Nations.”[2]

Let’s take a look at them, one at a time. Chapter 25 begins with a psalm of thanksgiving. Our poet overflows with gratitude because God has dealt with the powerful city, or as our friend Otto calls it, “the capital city of the world.” Verse 2 says that “you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt.” Again, what particular city is meant would depend on when this is written. It would be whatever superpower, whatever empire, is currently on top.

But regardless, here’s a lesson we can learn about its destruction. “This demonstration of Yahweh’s power will open the eyes of the nations who now rely upon their own power, and they will become aware who the real lord of the nations is, so that in future they will recognize him, pay him due honor and fear him, abandoning forever their own rule by force.”[3]

What does this mean for us? Is there a way we can bring this home? We live in the superpower that’s now currently on top. And we need to be careful. We can’t assume that we’re the one empire that can ignore the call, as verse 4 says, to be “a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress.”

Tough economic times tend to bring out both the best, and the worst, in people. When we carelessly label people as “terrorists,” and when we stir the pot of racial animosity, we shouldn’t pretend to be surprised when hatred and violence are the result—and when campaign rallies begin to look like mobs. This isn’t just about politics. This is about our soul as a people.

The readings in the Rule of Benedict this past week focused on humility. Joan Chittister offers these comments on it:[4]

“Humility is the ability to know ourselves as God knows us and to know that it is the little we are that is precisely our claim on God.” It’s the little we are that’s our claim on God! That’s the exact opposite of that loud-mouthed, self-important crew in Isaiah’s poem!

She goes on, “Humility is, then, the foundation for our relationship with God, our connectedness to others, our acceptance of ourselves, our way of using the goods of the earth and even our way of walking through the world, without arrogance, without domination, without scorn, without put-downs, without disdain, without self-centeredness. The more we know ourselves, the gentler we will be with others. Humility, the lost virtue of the [twenty-first] century, is crying to heaven for rediscovery.”

Like our buddy, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who admits his difficulty in loving his neighbor, I admit my own difficulty in practicing humility. It’s just so hard to do it when there are so many dumb people out there! (That was an attempt at humor.)

Fortunately, our text doesn’t end on that note. In the second poem, we have a vision of the feast for the nations, the banquet of the Lord. And we’re given some really powerful images.

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear” (v. 6). “This mountain,” to which the nations make their pilgrimage, is Zion. This is when the evolution of hope and love reaches its fruition.

The striking words of verse 7 spell out what that means. “And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” One writer notes that in Canaanite religion, Mot, the god of death, is portrayed “as a beast who swallows up everyone. Now the swallower will become the swallowee when Yahweh swallows up death forever.”[5]

Notice the way the verse appears in the Revised English Bible. “On this mountain the Lord will destroy that veil shrouding all the peoples, the pall thrown over all the nations.” Our poet has an incredible vision. Just as a shroud covers a coffin, there is also a pall of death covering the people of the earth. That is what the Lord promises to do away with.

But what is the shroud cast over all the peoples? What is the sheet spread over all the nations? Here, as in so many places in the scriptures, there are levels of meaning. At one level, Isaiah speaks of the literal death that we inflict on each other, be it in war—or in the home. (By the way, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.)

Still, at another level of meaning, that death shroud is everything that diminishes us, everything that dehumanizes us. Think of the many ways in which we profit from human misery. Think of the ways in which we are our own worst enemy. We get confused. We think we’re making the right choices. Even so, our God still gathers all of that up and carries us. God refuses to allow our insanity to have the last word. That’s the evolution of hope and love.

And this isn’t lost on our good friend, Teilhard. Because of his dogged faith, he sees past the numerous setbacks in this grand experiment called the human race. “Human effort,” he says with well-chosen words, “is a loving, shaky collaboration which we give into divine hands. It is both personal fulfillment and embellishment, but also a gift that has just begun.”[6]

There may be no better way to abandon our smallness and venture out onto the unknown ocean of love than to maintain that awareness. We need to remember that we haven’t arrived. All of our effort is but a gift that has just begun. Let me call your attention one last time to Teilhard. Look at his words appearing on page 2 of our worship bulletin:

“To love God and our neighbor [is not] simply an act…which is superimposed upon our other individual preoccupations. It is life itself, life within expressed in the integrity of its aspirations, battles, and accomplishments, and embraced in a spirit of closeness and unification with everything else that matters to the Christian, if indeed he [or she] wants to be a Christian.”[7]

This isn’t some generic fluff to disregard. These are pretty specific directions. God doesn’t give visions to the servants of God, be they prophets or mystics or whoever, to be simply ignored. We ourselves are part of the ongoing evolution of hope and love. We can choose to go along with the Lord, or to fight against him.

Working with Christ will hasten the day when we can say, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (v. 9).

[1] in André Dupleix, 15 Days of Prayer with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1999), 31.

[2] Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 13-39 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), 196, 199.

[4] www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html for 10 October

[5] fontes.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/pentecosta2.htm#Pentecost2