De-Weaponized Wolves--December 8, 2022

De-Weaponized Wolves--December 8, 2022

"They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea." [Isaiah 11:9]

To hear the Bible tell it, the way to peace isn't to arm the sheep so they can deter the wolves from attacking; it's for the wolves, lions, and bears to learn from the lambs how not to use their claws.  The vision the prophets give us is of a world in which we can all lay down our weapons, rather than one in which we've all got daggers at each other's throats.  In other words, the Scriptures envision a peace that doesn't have to come at the expense of anybody's livelihood--which means that genuine peace can never be separated from true justice and equity, as well.

There's a lot of really big, and really important ideas there in this passage from Isaiah 11 that we've been looking at for much of this week.  And an awful lot of it runs counter to the "conventional wisdom" of our time and place.  So often you'll hear it called common sense that you have to be ready to "get the other guy before he gets you," and that therefore you can only achieve peace by having everybody armed to the hilt and aware that anyone else can fire at you. It's a mindset that says, "To keep the lions from attacking the calves, let's just give all the calves claws and fangs," so now all the animals will be afraid of being eaten. It says that the only way I can be stopped from hurting you is to be afraid that you'll hurt me more if I try to. And it's a house of cards built on fear--it assumes that the only way for people to be truly in peace is for all of us to be constantly afraid that someone will get us that we'll be scared into not attacking first.  But that isn't peace--that the paralysis that comes from fear.  And it's certainly not what Isaiah envisions.

The other thing that Isaiah's vision points out is that genuine peace is not the same as bullies or predators silencing everybody else into submission.  The wolves or bears could threaten the sheep and cattle into being still and docile, but that isn't harmony.  That isn't the "shalom" dreamed of in the Scriptures.  Or as Amanda Gorman's poem, "The Hill We Climb," put it so potently, "Quiet isn't always peace."  The prophet isn't just looking for a world where bullies intimidate the rest of us into accepting their bullying, either.  That's why the Empires of the Bible were never really agents of peace--they insisted on dominating their neighbors and conquering them, not seeking their mutual well-being.  During the time of Jesus and the early church, Rome liked to imagine [and it told its subjects through imperial propaganda] that it was the bringer of peace--the "Pax Romana"--and that Roman rule would guarantee order and safety throughout the known world.  But it was never really peace, because the moment anybody stepped out of line, Rome reserved the right to crucify the troublemakers and plunder the people it ruled.  Whatever peace is, it is not domination.  It is not the way of empire.  I suppose that's why Isaiah doesn't envision peace by having the bears and lions growling at the sheep until they cower into submission.  Rather, they all learn to live side by side, without anybody threatening anybody else.

For us who are so accustomed to the thinking that we can only build peace through defeating or dominating somebody else, it will mean a whole new way of thinking.  It will mean a whole new creation.  But the vision Isaiah gives us is worth making the effort to allow it to stretch our minds and hearts.  The hope is not of a world where we are so afraid that anybody else could shoot me that I have to be ready to shoot them first, but of a world where, as the prophet says it, "They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain."  It is not a way of life built on fear to keep people from harming each other, but a way of life built on trust that we can each have what we need and live together.  It is a rejection of zero-sum game thinking that says your win has to be my loss, and my success can only come by your defeat.  Isaiah dares us to imagine that in God's order of things--what we sometimes call the Kingdom or Reign of God--we no longer have to live our lives ruled by such fear.  We can be the ones who anticipate that new way of life now as people who are brave enough lay down our weapons and to tell others, "I won't be the one to shoot.  I will risk being vulnerable enough so that you don't have to be ruled by fear of me."

If any of this makes us uncomfortable, perhaps it's worth examining why--and what we have really put our trust in.  If the coming of the Prince of Peace and this new order where wolves and lambs lie down together safely makes us squirm, perhaps it means we have built our lives on systems that depend on violence and fear, and we are afraid to lose our comfortable perches if we let go of those systems.  The prophet dares us to believe that it is worth it to let them go anyway.

May we be so brave.

Lord Jesus, disarm us in your embrace, and free us from being ruled by fear.