The Case for Olive Branches--December 7, 2021

The Case for Olive Branches--December 7, 2021

I know in our part of the world, this is the season for evergreens.  This is the time of year when wreaths are made of pine boughs, sprigs of fir or spruce, or circles of holly, and with good reason.  I know the symbolism, reaching back many centuries, of these plants as signs of life that continues even when the winter is at its coldest and the winds blow their strongest.  I know, living in a county that prizes its reputation as the "Christmas Tree Capital of the World," to appreciate the beauty of all those conifers that keep their color all year long, even through a bleak midwinter.

But I want to make the case that--at least in our actions--this is also a time for olive branches.  That is to say, the season of waiting and watching for Christ's coming is ripe for reconciliation, and for mending relationships that have gone too long in estrangement and discord.  Today's dare, then, to embody hope this Advent, is just that: to extend an olive branch and take a small step toward reconciling with someone in some relationship that has been frayed lately.  

Sometimes we forget the biblical origins of that phrase, "extending an olive branch," but it really is fitting for new beginnings in our broken relationships.  You know the end of the flood story in Genesis, how as Noah is waiting to see if the waters have subsided, he sends out different birds at different times and watches to see if they'll return with any evidence that the world outside the ark is coming back to life.  First, the raven comes back with nothing... so he waits.  Then, he sends a second bird (our translations in English often render it "dove," but the Hebrew is the same word for "pigeon," and scientifically, they are the same family of birds, but that's a conversation for another day), and this one brings back a fresh sprig from an olive tree.  Noah understands what this means--there are new plants springing up somewhere nearby, and the bird has brought back evidence.  Ever since that story was first told, we've been borrowing the image of an olive branch as a sign of new beginnings being possible.

That image may go back a long way into our ancient past, but there's also a reason for making amends with others that comes from the future: the Scriptures keep pointing us to a day when God not only renews creation but transforms us so that old enmities are put away.  Wolves and lambs lie down together in safety, without anyone getting eaten. Cows and bears, snakes and toddler, too.  All safely in God's "peaceable kingdom."  The old animosities are gone, and new kinds of relationships can be begun.  The same with the images of swords being beaten into plows and spears into pruning hooks--they speak of God's promise to train our hearts so we will no longer kill one another, when, indeed, we "will learn war no more."  (I have to tell you, just days after another school shooting in our country, those words from the prophets weigh heavily on my heart.)  God's promised future, in other words, is one of restored, transformed relationships, where no one needs to live in fear of being attacked or harmed by others, and where we do not lash out first for fear of someone else hurting us first.

And if this is a season for us to embody hope--to show people around us what our trust in God's good news really looks like--then this is a perfect moment for taking the first steps, even if they are small ones, to make peace with someone whose relationship with you has been strained.  It doesn't mean we'll paper over our past conflicts in the sentimentality of Christmas, only to have the old wounds return in the blah of January.  It doesn't mean we are saying whatever the other person did or said to you once upon a time was OK (nor does it mean that whatever it was you said or did to them was OK, either).  But it does mean we make the decision not to let those past choices dictate our future ones.  It means we don't have to keep weaponizing the past, nor nursing old grudges to keep the pain fresh and bitterness from going away.  It means we break silences we have allowed to go for too long, at least to let the other person know, "I want to try to make things right again."

Look, I don't know what the particular heartaches are that you have been through.  I don't know which particular relationships in your life have been strained.  I don't know what was said to you or done to you, and I don't know what you have carried with regret in your memory, either, that you wish you could take back now.  I don't know the specific pains in your life, but I know what it feels like in my own life to bear those hurts and feel those absences.  I know that it can feel like it's impossible to ever get a strained relationship to grow back, and I know what it's like, too, have just survived in life by leaving old broken ones behind and never looked back.  And I make no promises that our mere good intentions can heal the lingering hurts between us.

But I do believe that the followers of Jesus are called to live now in light of what we believe God promises us.  I believe we are meant to live with confidence that our weapons will be hammered into something actually useful someday, and to act like it now by attempting to hammer out our differences now.  I believe that we are called to trust the prophet that one day we will learn war no more, and to anticipate that day now by risking the vulnerability of offering ourselves, disarmed, to others in a first step of peace.  I believe that a God who can raise the dead can resurrect an estranged relationship.  And I believe that a God who can transform creation itself so that wolves and lambs can be at peace can also transform past dysfunction in our relationships if we are willing to make amends for the past hurts we have inflicted and willing to dare forgiveness for the hurts we have born.  I believe the most courageous, hope-filled, and Christ-centered thing we can do is to step out in a violent and resentful world without a sword, a spear, or a gun in hand, but rather with an olive branch.

Today, what if you and I took the first step?  A phone call, a voicemail, a text, an email.  A handwritten note.  An olive branch.  What if we were so confident that in God's promise that one day our old enmities will be overcome that we started to practice at it now, and offered the possibility of starting over--whatever that might look like--where we have been cut off from one another for too long?  Could we dare such courage?  

Let us dare it.

Lord God, you promise to make all things new, even our relationships. Give us the courage to mend and begin again with one another, in light of the promised reconciliation you have in store for all things.