COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE MONTEREY PENINSULA
P. O. BOX 222811
CARMEL CA 93922
(831) 624-8595
www.ccmp.org
Rev. Paul Wrightman, Pastor
Independent and United Church of Christ
October 25, 2020
Dear Friends,
One of the best things about the outdoor Celebration of Life service that was held in honor of Solomon Yoo a short time ago was that some of us actually got to see and hear one another. We will definitely be offering an outside worship service if the virus restrictions are still in place this spring. Until then, our Zoom worship option is a workable alternative. The is a time for personal sharing after the sermon, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the level of depth and caring that is able to come through a computer screen. I know that 1:00 on Sunday afternoon isn’t an ideal time for everyone, but if you have the chance please give the Zoom service a try. All you need to do, if you haven’t done so already, is to let me know. Once your name is on the list, I’ll automatically send you a link each Sunday around 12:30. If any given Sunday doesn’t work out for you, simply ignore and erase the link. My email address is [email protected].
Another opportunity to check out CCMP’s Zoom connection is on Wednesday evenings from 6-7 for our Bible Study on the Gospel of Luke. The discussion is lively and deep. Again, all you need to do to receive a link is to let me know.
This week’s sermon is meant to be evocative. I’m hoping that what it evokes is your personal responses to the reflection questions following the sermon. In answering these questions myself, I was surprised at what I learned about myself and my own hopes and dreams.
Take Good Care, and Always Remember that Jesus IS Emmanuel, God WITH Us,
Paul
WORSHIP SERVICE FOR OCTOBER 25, 2020
INTRODUCTORY READING Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
There is a longing in us to return to our native place, to meet once again with our kin in the Earth community. We are being called home to a wider world of life, of wilderness and spontaneity, the world of wind and rain, of oak and maple and pineland forests, of the eagle and the chickadee, the wolf and the bear, and the many other beings – all our relations – with whom we share this Earth. Though ours is a time of increasing habitat destruction, species extinction, and sprawling concrete metropolises, more and more people are seeking companionship and meaning beyond the boundaries of humanity. We begin to remember our larger family and we find they have remained loyal to our ancient bond.
To our ancestors, the visitation of animals or the simple sound of the wind in the trees carried messages from the Creator and the spirits of Earth. The entire landscape was known to be sacred and infused with creativity, meaning, and its own story. Physically and spiritually we are woven into this story. Yet today it seems that the manifestations of nature are noticed almost entirely for their market value. We have chased the gods from the groves, and nature is owned and traded as a stock of “resources” for our use. We human animals are left to suffer a loneliness the source of which we may not even remember.
If we pretend
that we are at the center,
that moles and kingfishers,
eels and coyotes
are at the edge of grace,
then we circle, dead moons
about a cold sun. –Joseph Bruchac
SUGGESTED MUSIC Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
Jimjimjimmy4 You Tube
OPENING PRAYER Mary de La Valette, contemporary
Blessed are the animals
For they shall lead us back
To our lost innocence.
Blessed are the great whales
For their vast intelligence
Is peaceful.
Blessed are the otters
For their playfulness
Is without guile.
Blessed are the bees
For they make Earth
Fruitful and green.
Blessed are the elephants
For they are pure of heart.
Blessed are the great cats
For surely their perfection
Has no equal.
Blessed are all wild, free things
For they live in harmony
With their Mother.
Blessed are those animals
Who are part of our families
For they bind us to the rest of Creation.
May we listen to Earth’s other voices
And become shepherds to the flock.
Blessed is the Creation
In its magnificence.
For the Spirit dwells
In every living thing.
And is indivisible.
LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass
against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
SCRIPTURE READING: Isaiah 11:1, 6-9
A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
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.
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.
(While not absolutely necessary, if you are able to access an Edward Hicks painting on the internet, it would make the first part of this week’s sermon take on added meaning. If you’re interested, here are the directions: Type in Edward Hicks on any search engine. Edward Hicks Paintings will appear. Scroll down to Images of Edward Hicks Paintings. Click on middle painting. Click on first painting to enlarge.)
SERMON: GOD’S KINGDOM (OR KIN-DOM) OF PEACE
Rev. Paul Wrightman
(The underlining merely shows what I would emphasize if delivered orally.)
How does one discover peace? How does one create peace? These are questions that all of us have asked and are still asking. The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, actually means fullness of life and includes physical and spiritual health and a vital connection to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. These are all seen as essential and inter-related dimensions of Peace.
Edward Hicks was a rough-and-tumble carriage maker who lived in Pennsylvania in the early 1800’s. His younger years were spent in wild living, hard drinking, and bar room brawls. But at age 23 Hicks had a dramatic conversion.
Troubled, he stumbled into a Quaker meeting. The peace and quiet intrigued him. He gave up drinking and brawling and became a Quaker.
Soon afterward Edward Hicks received a call to preach. Quaker preachers were not paid. For years Hicks traveled from town to town, preaching at small meetings. He supported himself by painting signs.
Eventually, he quit preaching and took up painting full time. In the end, unschooled, untrained, unsettled Edward Hicks became the leading folk artist in America in the early 1800’s.
His most popular painting was called The Peaceable Kingdom. Hicks painted it at least 100 times. This one image captured and compelled him. Each rendition was slightly different. But a child, an ox, and a lamb appear in each one. They live at peace with wild beasts: lions and tigers and bears.
Elizabeth and I have a print of one of the versions of The Peaceable Kingdom at home.
Someone once said, “When the lion lies down with the lamb, only the lion gets to sleep well!” Someone else has said, “That picture is great – as long as you replace the lamb every day!”
Actually, the most dangerous figure in the picture is not the lion or the wolf or the bear, but the baby. Bears and wolves and lions have a lot more to fear from us than we have to fear from them.
But in Edward Hicks’ peaceable kingdom, there was neither predator nor prey.
Hicks’ painting is more than engaging art. It’s a political-religious statement. William Penn of Pennsylvania always appears in every painting. Penn is often in the distance, negotiating a peace treaty with Native Americans.
William Penn was Edward Hicks’ hero. Hicks believed that the path of nonviolence and religious tolerance – the Quaker way of William Penn – would create in Philadelphia a city of brotherly love on earth.
If only we would live like William Penn, thought Edward Hicks, then certainly the peaceable kingdom could be established here.
But perfect peace wasn’t established by William Penn. Penn was a good governor. But he only governed Pennsylvania for two years before he sailed back to England. He only returned, briefly, once.
His deputies governed Pennsylvania poorly in his absence. Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love,” experienced dissension and strife.
William Penn could not usher in the peaceable kingdom.
. . . .
Twenty-five hundred years before Edward Hicks picked up a brush, the people of Jerusalem also dreamed of a peaceable kingdom. Their hopes rested on King Hezekiah, who was only 25 years old when he ascended to the throne. At his coronation, Isaiah, the court prophet, offered the moving vision which is today’s Scripture reading. Isaiah saw this idealistic young king – who may have been his student – as filled with the spirit of God. Hezekiah would know and do what was right.
The poor would be treated fairly. Peace would break out between nations – and in all of nature as well. If only Hezekiah would listen to and obey God, reasoned Isaiah, then surely the peaceable kingdom would come.
Hezekiah was a good king. He was a religious reformer. He tore down the shrines where idols were worshipped. He was often in repentance, fasting, and prayer.
Still, Hezekiah took risks that enraged powerful enemies and endangered his own nation. Judah was invaded several times during his reign.
The peaceable kingdom was not ushered in by Hezekiah.
. . . .
A few years ago a new theme park, The Animal Kingdom, was opened at Disney World in Orlando. It hosts over 1,000 animals from 300 species. There are 2.3 million carefully cultivated plants.
At the center of The Animal Kingdom is the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is fourteen stories tall. Its trunk is fifty feet wide. It has 8,000 fake branches with 100,000 fake leaves sewed to them. Its canopy stretches 160 feet across the sky.
Disney World describes the Tree of Life like this: “A powerful symbol representing the interconnected nature of all living things. . . Carved into the gnarled roots, enormous trunk, and uplifted branches are the twisting, turning shapes of more than 300 animals. . .”
Disney world continues: “Every guest is invited to stroll the Tree of Life Garden through the root system of the Tree of Life. This soft landscape is filled with otters, flamingos. . .lemurs, tortoises, and colorful ducks, storks, cranes, and cockatoos. . . or, the guest may enter a theater built into the roots of the Tree of Life. It’s currently showing the movie, It’s Tough to Be a Bug.”
Near the Tree of Life, “Safari” Jeeps pull little open cars and venture into the “wilds” of Orlando. Cheetahs, crocodiles, elephants, hippopotami, and black and white rhinos can be viewed – in safety, of course.
The Tree of life, with its surrounding garden, and human beings and animals co-existing in harmony, are intended to be a reminder of the Garden of Eden, complete with computer-controlled artificial mist that rises up on cue!
But, for all its clever engineering and special effects, Disney’s Animal Kingdom is not the peaceable kingdom either. Before the park opened, thirty of the imported animals died. They couldn’t adjust to the climate. Some of the animals hide most of the day from the sun – and from the tourists.
Even the magic of Disney and all the wonders of technology can’t create a peaceable kingdom on earth.
Yet the image of the Peaceable Kingdom persists deep within us.
Maybe that’s why Edward Hicks painted that one image again and again.
Maybe that’s why millions will pay billions to see an artificial Eden in Orlando.
Our vision of the Peaceable Kingdom is a yearning for paradise lost. The image of a Garden of Eden, where all things work together well, is deep in our souls.
We know it’s not here yet. Human society is still filled with injustice and strife. Wolves still eat lambs. And we human beings continue to make a mess of nature.
Still, we long for the Peaceable Kingdom. When will it come?
The early church was so caught-up in the wholeness, goodness, and peace that Jesus brought with his first ministry, that it couldn’t wait for Jesus to come back to make this wholeness, goodness, and peace complete.
Christian belief in the second coming of Christ has been around since Christ’s first coming.
Many Christians see Christ’s second coming as filled with violence and destruction, as in the book of Revelation.
Other Christians, most of us included, see the violence and destruction described in the book of Revelation as direct contradictions of Jesus’ own teaching in the Gospels. We see Jesus coming back using the very same means he did in his first coming: nonviolence, compassion, and God’s relentless grace and love.
Many of us believe that the Kingdom (or Kin-dom) of God – the Peaceable Kingdom – will, indeed, come in its fullness when Christ comes again. Jesus is the “shoot” that grows out of the stalk of Jesse. Jesus is the one whom the Spirit of God rests upon. Jesus is the little child who will lead us in his gentle ways. Jesus is the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God. Even the sharp contrasts of nature come together in him.
The Kingdom of God will come in its fullness only with the return of Christ.
But the Kingdom of God is already partially present.
Every time Edward Hicks painted his painting, every time William Penn enacted a fair treaty with Native Americans, every time King Hezekiah judged fairly, a bit of the Kingdom was established.
Every time we use technology wisely, every time we stand up for the poor, every time we stand up for justice, a bit of the Kingdom comes.
Every time someone advocates to save a wolf or a lion, every time we join in Communion, a bit of God’s Kingdom is among us.
The Peaceable Kingdom is God’s dream for creation. God, in God’s goodness, has allowed us to share that dream. Longing for it and looking for it and working for it is a good part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
We pray: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
One day – may it be soon – there will be a leader who judges fairly, stands up to oppression, and redeems the poor.
One day – may it be soon – the lion will fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy and eat straw.
One day – may it be soon – one with the attitude of a little child will lead all of creation. Amen.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
What forms has your own yearning for peace taken throughout your life?
Where do you think this yearning comes from?
What have you already done to make peace a reality in your life?
What additional steps would you like to take to make peace a reality?
CLOSING PRAYER Arthur O. Roberts, Contemporary
Lord, it may seem odd
That I should pray here, now.
But when I plant trees
I’ve things to say to God.
These little trees are Yours,
You know, not just mine.
A redwood grove twelve inches tall
Is hardly anyone’s at all,
I suppose, except by faith.
A man gets to wondering,
Between bulldozers and the fears
Of war, why look ahead
A hundred, even thirty years?
I don’t know . . .except
As these trees grow
I hope my great grandchildren
Or someone’s boys and girls
Play hide-and-seek
Among the towering trunks
And chattering squirrels.
I hope they hear beauty
In the singing boughs
And birds. I hope they
Breathe clean forest air
And find Your peace.
When my hands press moist soil
Carefully about the roots
I feel Your life and love,
I feel a world reborn.
O, God, heal the scars
Of earth with trees,
And not with snags
and thorn.
SUGGESTED MUSIC Celtic Woman–You raise me up with lyrics Berthilde
1994 You Tube
BENEDICTION
Patiently and persistently, God loves.
Relentlessly and unconditionally, God loves.
Now and forever, God loves.
AMEN.