A Sheep Ahead of the Curve

A Sheep Ahead of the Curve--November 27, 2018

"A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

     and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

 The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, 

     the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

     the spirit of counsel and might,

     the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

 His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.

 He shall not judge by what his eyes sees,

     or decide by what his ears hear;

 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

     and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

 he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

     and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, 

    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

 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.

 The cow and the bear shall graze,

     their young shall lie down together;

     and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den." [Isaiah 11:1-8]

I guess this means that at some point, the lambs and the wolves are going to have to put the past behind them, won't they?

That's the practical upshot of this vision we get from the prophet Isaiah of the promised victory of God, isn't it?  That at the last, when old enmities are overcome, the old grudges and hatreds and division of the past will be put aside as well.

Maybe that's the most difficult part of this whole scene to believe, honestly.  As fantastical as it sounds to imagine cows and bears, lions and oxen, wolves and lambs, all playing together and munching on grass, maybe even harder to envision is that each of these critters is able to move beyond the animosities of their past.  

For a scene like this to become reality, after all, you'll not only need the wolves to give up eating the flock, but you'll need the sheep to give up holding on to the resentments of past wolf attacks, too.  You'll not only need the leopards to promise to quit stalking the goats, but the goats will have to dare to trust the promise and forgive the times they had been hunted before.  And if goats and sheep are anything like the people I know, that's probably the hardest part of all of this--the forgiving, the trusting, the starting over without sliding back into the same old enmities.

A wise sheep--or at least a sheep that's ahead of the curve--would do well, then, to take that future scene from God's peaceable kingdom into consideration in the present moment, too.  It would be a good idea for the cattle and goats and lambs to be able to see beyond present animosity, and to recognize that there will come a day when these two opposing sides will share the same lunch buffet and eat at the same table.  But that requires the ability to recognize (with more than a little humility) that the animosity of the present moment will not--and indeed should not--last forever.  It requires the ability to act now with a certain graciousness, even toward those who are opponents right now (yes, even if they seem like hungry wolves and salivating leopards), because we dare to believe that there will come a day when our old hatreds are put aside.  That is hard to do if I am convinced that my enemy is 100% evil and I am 100% an innocent lamb.  But hey, if the sheep can do it here in Isaiah 11, then maybe I can make the effort knowing that I am not actually 100% innocent in this life, and the people I like the least or have the biggest hostility toward are not demons, either.  A sheep who's ahead of the curve will at least be able to see that somewhere down the road, the ones I want to cast as wolves will be reconciled to me, and we will all be changed.  Their preying instincts will be curbed, and I will have to let go of the bitterness from my side.  And I should be careful now what kind of words and actions I use against the ones I see as wolves, because one day I may have to eat those words along with the grass and straw.

Right now, near where I live, there's a big strike going on at our local hospital.  People I care about and respect find themselves on opposing sides of that dispute.  It reminds me of the teachers' strike they had in a nearby district about twelve or thirteen years ago, too--where people who sat in the same pews at church were seething with merciless bitterness toward each other on the internet, in newspaper editorials, and in gossip at the post office.  In moments like these, people have a way of waging all-out war against one another, unleashing cruel words and taking petty actions against each other, because they cannot see beyond the conflict of the present moment.  

In those moments, it is almost like we get amnesia and forget what life was like before the fighting--and maybe we even forget that the current conflict will not last forever.  And when that happens, we start justifying all kinds of rottenness and cruelty against "the other side"--you know, those dirty, scummy wolves and snakes!--because we are convinced there will never be a reconciliation, and because we have told ourselves that "my side" is wholly in the right, with nothing but pure motives and angelic righteousness, while "the other side" is wicked and evil.  It's funny how much we can justify ourselves doing when we cast ourselves as the poor, victimized sheep who just have to defend ourselves, and when we cast "the other" as a dangerous, threatening, wicked wolf.  After all, when you have told yourself that the ones on the other side aren't really like you, you can convince yourself it's okay to do terrible things in the name of protecting the ones who really are like you.  When you convince yourself that YOU'RE the "good guy," you can let yourself off the hook for all kinds of terrible things done to the "bad guys," because you can never imagine a time when you might be brought back together, side by side, to share a table together.

And that's the true power of this vision of God's victorious Reign--the one established by the "shoot from Jesse," that is to say, Jesus of Nazareth.  This vision of lambs and wolves lying down together, of cows and bears in the same lunch line at the divine cafeteria, forces us to see further into the future than our shortsightedness would otherwise allow.  We are compelled to see that there will come a time when old enmities are reconciled, when old hatreds are put away, and when I will find myself sitting face to face with the ones I swore were my bitter enemies.

And maybe we are compelled to see one thing more: maybe as much as I want to see myself an "my side" as the entirely innocent and righteous sheep, and as much as I want to see "the other side" as the villainous, wicked wolves, it is possible that my opponent sees the tables turned and the roles reversed.  It is possible that the ones I am so sure have nothing but ash in their hearts actually have reasons for the ways they see and think, and that they perceive my actions and words as cruel, selfish, or wolf-like.  Nobody does evil so quickly as when they are convinced they are victims who must defend the cause of righteousness, after all.  And no causes so much destruction so enthusiastically as someone convinced he's the lone "good guy" who has to take out the ones he has decided are the "bad guys." But maybe Isaiah's vision compels us to take an honest look forward into the future and to see that there is a time when the hostilities we think will last forever will one day come to an end, even if we cannot see how at the present moment.  A sheep that's ahead of the curve will at least have the humility to trust that the reconciliation can happen even if I don't know how it will... and will be wise enough not to use scorched-earth tactics now when there will come a time when we have to graze on that ground together.

There are plenty of hostilities and divisions in front of us these days.  We can feel them between our nation and other countries, within our own nation in these terribly polarized times, and in our communities and families, too. I cannot wink those conflicts away.  But Isaiah reminds me that neither can I forget that there will come a time when the enmities that seem permanent are over and done, and that I would be wise to live now in such a way that I can even look my present enemies in the eye without shame.  And when the ones I can't help but see as "wolves" go low, I will not return evil for evil, but will go high in response.  There will come a day, after all, when God gathers us all together at the same unending dinner party.  And I need to be at least as ready for that day as I am for the tensions of the present one.

We all do.

Lord Jesus, give us such confident trust in your promised victory that we can be careful even in the ways we deal with conflict and tension now--help us to see those for whom we have the greatest animosity now as people you will seat beside us in your peaceable reign's banquet.