11-15-13 - Peaceable Kingdom

The portion of Isaiah we’re looking at depicts different visions of peace and security. It even goes beyond human life to show peace reigning in the natural world, with an image that is known as “The Peaceable Kingdom”: The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox;

In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled.

They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.  
No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.

On my drive back from DC yesterday morning, I passed about seven carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It seemed such an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I do realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, not so positive ways in our world; without predators they have to go further and further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I do know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit is wounded whenever I see a dead animal. I’m increasingly leery of the whole idea of killing animals for food.

So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling.

Well, what we do as people of faith is call into being what is not yet. (There’s a Bible verse that says something like, “call what is not as though it is.” Prize for the first person who finds it…) If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is – we invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later… sooner, if we all agree. Transformation happens.

I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Your own? Something somebody else has described? Where are your prayers leading you today?

Yesterday, Sandy Hook Promise, one of the groups launched in Newtown in the aftermath of the mass shooting last year, unveiled its initiatives for bringing peace by working to prevent gun violence and encouraging parents. Their new website says: Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) is a national, non-profit organization led by community members and several parents and spouses who lost loved ones in the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012 that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and 6 educators. Our intent is to honor all victims of gun violence by turning our tragedy into a moment of transformation.

This is one way we bring about the peaceable kingdom – allowing our tragedies to become moments for transformation, our pain turned to purpose. Another part of Isaiah tells this vision again, with a different ending: The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them. Amen.