Forging Hope--December 15, 2023

Forging Hope--December 15, 2023

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?  But, in accordance with this promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home." [2 Peter 3:10-13]

So, true story.  I have this bell, a little one that fits easily in the palm of my hand, that I got years ago.  It looks like this:

And the thing about this bell is that it used to be a weapon.  More precisely, the metal in this bell used to be part of an artillery shell found in the killing fields of Cambodia.  After the bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge, there were countless such empty shells, bullet casings, and pieces of shrapnel left on the ground, and a good number of people living in poverty would collect it as scrap metal for additional income.  The folks at Church World Service, an international relief agency, started a program called "Shells Into Bells," where these pieces of scrap could be reforged into bells for their animals and livestock, so that these tools of destruction could become a part of something life-giving.  Whenever I see my bell, sitting on the ledge in my office, or hear its gentle tinkling sound, I think of these words from the writing we call Second Peter--because this is what our hope is like.  We are waiting for God's promised day when all of our tools of death and domination are melted down, and when at last all creation is a place where peace and justice (the same word in Greek is translated "righteousness") are, as Pete says, "at home."  We are pinning our hopes on God's commitment to reclaim the pieces of this creation that we humans have distorted, abused, and weaponized and to remake them, like a whole new heavens and new earth, into a world without things like "killing fields" or "collateral damage," and no more assault weapons or war crimes, either.

But it's in the light of that kind of promised future that we have to hear this talk from Second Peter about "the heavens being set ablaze and dissolved" and "the elements melting with fire."  This is blacksmith talk.  This is the metaphor of metallurgy.  This is the way of the forge--where some raw material, which might be neutral or even good on its own, is melted down from an older form into something new.  The same metal that had been an artillery shell, for example, can be heated and hammered into a bell.  Or as the prophets Isaiah and Micah imagined, swords can be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.  It's not the metal's fault that it had been fashioned into something terrible; the molecules of the bronze aren't to blame.  But they are in need of being reclaimed, remade, and reshaped, from something bent by evil and violence into something useful and good for the cultivation of life.  

All of this is to say that this "fire" language from Second Peter doesn't have the feel of "punishment" per se, the way we often assume, but of the foundry.  When the goldsmith melts down nuggets and pours the molten metal into a form, like a ring, it's not to punish the gold, but to shape it into something that is good, beautiful, and useful.  And when a blacksmith hammers a piece of glowing-hot iron on the anvil, it's not to make the metal "pay" or "suffer" for whatever it was made into before, but in order to repurpose the iron and reclaim it for new use.  The fire and the furnace are certainly hot, and they are not to be taken lightly or glibly, but they are essentially creative tools. The metal may have to be melted, dissolved, broken down, and hammered in order to for that to happen, but it's for the sake of reclaiming the raw materials and restoring them to good purposes.  (Like the old line goes, if you feel like you are being hammered, it may be a sign you are still on the anvil--that God is making something of us, even in times when we are under pressure... or maybe especially through those times.)  That's worth remembering here, because it is easy for us to hear talk of "fire" at the mention of Jesus' coming and assume it is meant as judgment, as destruction, or as damnation.  (It's true that sometimes Jesus will talk about fire in that way, using the word "Gehenna," often translated "hell," to describe final judgment on evil, but that's not the way fire is being described here in Second Peter.)  The same fire that can be used to burn garbage and render useless refuse into ash can also be used to melt down and purify metal so it can be worked, shaped, and used.  And at least here in today's passage from Second Peter, that's the way the metaphor works--God will melt down all that we have distorted and fashioned into tools for death and hatred, and remake creation like the artillery shells reforged into bells.

That's our hope: that by the end of the story, God will have taken all the worst tragedies and terrible horrors we have wreaked upon each other (and the rest of creation) and will make a new creation of us all.  God will not give up on the goodness of the creation God first made, even though we have distorted and twisted it.  God will bring life out of the ashes that remain from our most hell-bent choices.  And out of this world where injustice, cruelty, and violence are the coin of the realm, God will make a "new heavens and a new earth, where justice is at home."

Now, in the mean time, our friend Pete here raises an intriguing question:  if this is our hope, and if indeed God is going to melt every last warhead and every last tool of terror and recast them into some part of the new creation, like my bell, "what sort of persons should we be?"  In light of God's promised future, knowing that tools of domination, hatred, greed, and death will be dissolved in the fire of God's forge, what things are worth giving our lives to and spending our love on?  What is worth our time, energy, and voice... and what is not? And what might be ways that we take what is distorted, twisted, and bent from hatred and let them become new creations, even now, to point ahead to the day for which we are waiting?

What might it look like for us to commit ourselves to forging hope with the day in front of us?

Lord God, we believe that you will make all things new in Jesus, and that death, violence, and hatred will be dissolved until your new creation shines with love and justice.  Let us be a part of that work of reclamation even now.