There Will Come a Day

Isaiah 2:1-5

It was the summer of 1969 and the creators of the children’s television show Sesame Street were just six weeks away from the air date of the first episode. To make sure they had a product that was going to be successful, the producers created five full-length episodes and showed them to groups of preschoolers around the city of Philadelphia. They wanted see how well the show held the attention of its intended audience.

But right away, there were problems. When the show was originally created, the writers and producers followed the advice of child psychologists who said they needed to separate the fantasy elements of the show from the real elements. When there were real human beings on the screen, the talking puppets should be nowhere in sight. In these test runs Muppets were filmed interacting only with other Muppets, and the street scenes showed only real adults and children. The psychologists were worried that mixing fantasy and reality would be misleading to the children watching the show.

The problem was, when the first episodes of Sesame Street were shown to groups of preschoolers in Philadelphia, the children lost interest in the show every time there was a street scene with only real people. Levels of attention would increase again when the Muppets came back on, but the producers knew the show would never be successful if the attention of its audience waxed and waned like that. So they defied the psychologists. They created puppets that could walk and talk and interact with human beings on the street and they re-shot all the street scenes. And that’s how Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and Snuffalupagos were born. (1)

Spend any time around young children and it becomes obvious that they have an innate capacity to mix fantasy and reality. They accept without question books and movies whose main characters are talking animals or fantastical creatures that could never exist in the so-called “real world.” But there comes a time when they start to question -- what is real? what is pretend? And how can they figure out the difference?

The image Isaiah paints in our reading today sounds wonderful: the house of the Lord elevated on a mountain above all other mountains; people from all over the world and every nation peacefully traveling towards it; the ringing sound, not of jingle bells, but of metal weapons being pounded and reshaped into productive tools of agriculture. But most of us are way past the point at which we view such an image as anything less than a fantasy. Sure, it’s a nice idea, but how can we possibly take it seriously? How can this picture Isaiah paints ever be a reality?

One of the reasons we have such a hard time taking the prophet’s words seriously is that this Advent season feels no different than any other. Globally and nationally, things look disastrous. Wars and conflicts seem never-ending, politicians won’t work together to solve problems, citizens cast blame on everyone but themselves, the economic recovery has stalled, and environmental disasters threaten our present and future way of life. For many of us, things at home are no better. There is conflict in our families, fear about the future, and grief that always seems to creep into our hearts and take up residence this time of year, just when we are trying to make it seem like everything is merry and bright.

So it might help us to remember that when Isaiah first spoke these words to the Israelites, things were equally bleak. The world was filled with violence and war. Israel had been conquered and occupied by the frightful Assyrian empire and pretty much everyone from the king on down was shivering in dread and fear, feeling helpless and hopeless.

And yet it is in the face of that very fear and hopelessness that Isaiah speaks this prophecy:

God shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

Into the darkness of war and uncertainty about the future, Isaiah, God’s prophet, offers God’s people -- then and now -- hope.

A Sunday School class of fifth graders was recently talking about the concept of hope. The kids in the class had a hard time coming up with a definition of hope, but finally they settled on two ideas: hope can either be wishful thinking, or hope is what helps you when you’re down and out. (2) In other words, paradoxical as it might sound, what these fifth graders realized is that hope is most real when we are in despair. We worship a God who, in the very birth of Jesus Christ in a tiny, conflicted, impoverished corner of the world, promised to be with us when we need it most, promised to be with us at those very times when things look the most bleak and hope-less. Viewed that way, the hope we cling to in the midst of the communal and individual struggles of our time is not the fantasy of children, but the reality we are called to proclaim.

Ruby Bridges may have been young, but at six years old she taught a lot of people about the reality of hope in the face of despair. Ruby was one of the first African-American children to integrate the New Orleans public schools. For months, federal marshals had to escort Ruby, every morning and afternoon, through crowds of angry parents hurling insults, racial slurs and violent words at this little girl. Finally, nearly every white family had withdrawn their children from the school. So Ruby went to school by herself for nearly the whole term.

A child psychologist named Robert Coles heard about Ruby and wanted to understand her better, so he spent some time with her and her parents. He also interviewed her teacher, trying to understand how Ruby could have withstood the adversity and abuse thrown at her. This is what her teacher said: “I was standing in the classroom looking out the window. I saw Ruby coming down the street with the federal marshals on both sides of her. The crowd was there shouting as usual. A woman spat at Ruby, but missed. Ruby smiled at her. A man shook his fist at her. Ruby smiled. And then she walked up the steps, and she stopped and turned around and smiled one more time. You know what she told one of those marshals? She told him she prays for those people, the ones in that mob. She prays for them every night before going to sleep.”

Coles asked Ruby directly about her prayers. “Yes,” Ruby said, “I do pray for them.” “Why?” Coles asked. “Why would you pray for people who are so mean to you and say such bad things about you?” “Because Mama said I should,” Ruby responded. “I go to church. I go to church every Sunday, and we’re told to pray for people, even bad people. Mama says it’s true. My minister says the same thing. ‘We don’t have to worry,’ he says. He came to our house and he says, ‘God is watching over us.’ He says if I forgive the people and smile at them and pray for them, God will keep a good eye on everything and he’ll protect us.”

Coles asked if Ruby thought the minister was right. “Oh, yes,” Ruby said. And then she explained, “I’m sure God knows what is happening. God’s got a lot to worry about, but there’s bad trouble here. God can’t help but notice. He may not do anything right now, but there will come a day, like they say in church, there will come a day. You can count on it. That’s what they say in church.” (3)

There will come a day. That’s what we say here in church. Perhaps even more importantly, that’s what the Bible promises, here in Isaiah and throughout Scripture. There will come a day.

As we journey deeper into Advent and closer to Christmas we have a choice. We can put up decorations, cook and bake, go to parties, and buy gifts as a means of constructing a fantasy -- if only for this season -- that everything in the world and in our lives is fine. Or we can do all those things in a way that proclaims our deep hope, our firm belief that there will come a day when all the pain and grief and violence in the world is transformed into peace and harmony and the house of God towers over everything else in the world. We proclaim this now, in this season of Advent, because we believe that in the birth of Jesus Christ God does something completely new, something that redefines reality for us, something that proves to us that no matter how bleak things seem, God is with us.

And so we can come together to this table, proclaiming our faith as we receive the feast God offers. Today we also have an opportunity to receive prayers for healing and wholeness, for ourselves or for someone we know. We do this to as a reminder that we can bring our deepest pain and sorrow to God, whatever is within us that God already sees, already forgives, already accepts, already loves. In the face of it all, we feast, we pray, not in denial, but with hope. As Ruby Bridges says, there’s bad trouble here, but God can’t help but notice...and act. So we act too, proclaiming our hope in Emmanuel, God with us, proclaiming in the midst of our despair the hope, even the sure and certain belief, that there will come a day. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. from an online excerpt of Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, Back Bay Books, 2002. Read it here.
2. As recounted by David Lose in the Sermon Brainwave podcast for Dec. 5, online here.
3. Quoted in a sermon entitled “Peace Is More Than a Christmas Wish” by the Rev. Dr. P.C. Ennis, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA, Dec. 9, 2007.