The Candle of Peace (Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is one of my favourites. It speaks of how we, more or less, come on to divergent paths in life, and take one by, perhaps, chance, or whim, or instinct, but find, as time and life wind on, that taking one way rather than the other was not a meaningless or fleeting decision, but has, indeed, “made all the difference” in life.

Last week as the choir sang that hauntingly beautiful advent anthem, “The Peaceable Kingdom of God,” I knew I would be singing it all week. The picture in the bulletin is just one attempt to visualize the passage in Isaiah 11, from which the words of the anthem drew. As we lit the second purple candle on the advent wreath today, the candle of Peace, we can think of that vision of the peaceable kingdom as a wonderful – what shall we call it? Some would call it a fantasy because it just doesn’t exist and cannot exist in this world. But it’s one road to take this advent, the road of the peaceable kingdom. The one we almost always do take, however, ends up being the road of the Gospel lesson, with its old fashioned, hair-shirted guy named John, out in the backwoods saying things to religious folk such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, “You brood of vipers! Who told you to come here to escape the wrath that’s coming”?” Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And you know who you are! Not very welcoming or near to the peaceable kingdom is it? But nearer, sometimes, to the religious world that we find around us, where we’re so sure that we’ve got God so much in our corner, that we’re ready to chop down pretty much everybody else’s trees. How should we view Christ’s coming this Advent? Is it a time when God’s about to lay the axe to the root of the tree, or is it the dawning of the peaceable kingdom? Well, it depends upon how we look at God and the coming of Jesus to the world. Sometimes the axe must come before the peaceable kingdom. Here’s what I mean. Let’s look at our lesson from the Old Testament in its context.

Isaiah 1-12 talks about what we could call the two roads, let me call them Axe Avenue and Peace Place, and these chapters address the end of those who have chosen to build on Axe Avenue. Those who live at that address, according to Isaiah, were Assyria and all Assyria wannabes. Now Assyria was the super-power in Isaiah’s day and the road it wanted take was the road of power for the privileged, of benefits for those who could already afford them. The positions of power on Axe Avenue went to the beautiful, the wealthy, the swift, and the strong. Now, as I said, there were many who wanted to walk such a road and have a home on Axe Avenue, including Isaiah’s own homeland of Judah, and many of the nations around it. Judah, of course, thought that they had God on their side because they were God’s chosen people. But that really didn’t make any difference, for the axe was about to fall on Assyria, and the Assyria wannabes, like Judah. Really, if we read, we’ll find that the end of Assyria and Judah are similar. About Judah, Isaiah said: “Cities (will) lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate…it will be burned…” (6:11,13) About Assyria’s: “In a very little while…my anger will be directed to their destruction” (10:25). Arrogance lead to destruction. In Isaiah’s way of thinking, which he was bold enough to claim as God’s, the view that sees the goal to be bigger, faster, stronger, and wealthier is part of what is slated for destruction. Yes, “two roads diverged in a wood,” and which road do we take? It makes all the difference.

The other road, alas, the one less travelled through history, including our own day, is Peace Place. The homes are more modest here, because this road puts a place for the weak, the poor, the plain, the lame, the sick, the blind, the marginalized at the centre not at the edges. Folk care for one another and are cared for by God. God meant those who walk and live on Peace Place to imagine, embody and proclaim the world this way, and create a community based on that imagination. The fact that such a road is less travelled by is witness to the difficulty of such a road, but not to the defectiveness of the vision.

Chapter 11 summarizes the road upon which God would have people go in a few poetic lines that centre on wholeness or peace. It begins: “A shoot (new growth) shall come from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” We don’t even mention Jesse’s great son David, because, well before Isaiah’s day, the monarchy David founded had thought it was walking down the right road when it valued human power, money, and might. Because of that, on Peace Place, Jesse’s a stump and David’s not even mentioned. Radical!

In the Bible, especially the Old Testament, when God does new things, they usually grow out of old things. Here, the root is Jesse, the old chosen family. Few grasped that Jesse’s family was not chosen for privilege, but for sharing God’s grace with the world. This was the road upon which to walk, and it was, indeed, the road, less travelled by.

According to Isaiah, who says it’s God that imagines this, that the ruler of those who live on Peace Place will be one whose primary characteristic is the presence and energy (or spirit) of God within. God gives this leader wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, true respect and love for God. On Peace Place such values are the normal way of things, though we know that they are the road less travelled. Their ruler delights in such values and vision, and does not judge by outer appearances, but by justice and righteousness that makes places for the meek and the marginal of the earth.

We’ve called this road Peace Place, others have called it the the Peaceable Kingdom, imagined in our bulletin. Animals and humans coexist in peace, and children (the most vulnerable) are the leaders (the most venerable). No one hurts, no one destroys. The whole earth is God’s Holy Mountain. And knowledge of God (like knowledge we have of friends and family) will cover the earth as water covers the sea, the perfect description of shalom. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Is Peace Place or the Peaceable Kingdom simply “poetic” or a fantasy? Well, it doesn’t seem to exist in the world, at least very completely. Is it just an ideal? Even if our answer is “Yes,” we shouldn’t think it unimportant, for without ideals for which to aim, where would we be? But I want to suggest that it is more than that. The road less taken, the road of peace and wholeness, contains God’s own vision for the world, and because it’s God’s vision, it will be an obvious fact one day. We said that in another way of hope last week. It’s the job of people like us to embody such a community here, and to do what we can to work it out into the wider world that is under the axe, even if Axe Avenue is the only popular address in town.

In our Epistle Lesson from Romans, I think Paul intended to give a practical version of that road less taken to the peaceable kingdom, or at least a down payment on it. Since the beginning of chapter 14, Paul had being encouraging all those who would hear or read to be very care-full of the different needs and concerns of others. The core message of our passage gives a specific example of such mutual pastoral care. Paul wrote that the best way to read the Bible was to let it be a guide to contemporary life. He then used four passages from his Bible (the Old Testament) to say that it was God’s enduring design to be inclusive of other folks than Jews, and such was a practical lesson in the Roman congregation where Jewish Christians were having problems with those whose background wasn’t Jewish. This was also true in Paul’s other congregations, and the Gentile component in the early Christian community was on the rise. He wrote: “May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another…Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Where the community of faith is Spirit-led it is still diverse, and so, still in need of such words about the road to take.

So how do we read such a text as “ for our instruction,” not just a history lesson? I suggest that when we welcome those different from us, in whatever category counts for us, as we have been welcomed by Jesus, that we can find ways to live in harmony with one another, and that we will be enabled to find creative ways to imitate God’s own encouragement and steadfastness with us. Note: the goal is harmony not unison. When we welcome one another, when we are caring of one another, we try to find ways that make the different notes we sing into harmony. Now, one mistake we can make is to think that God’s going to do this for us, or make it easy. Won’t happen! Real community depends upon each of us working to make sure the needs of those others are met. It is then that Christian communities become outposts of the peaceable kingdom in the foothills of God’s holy mountain. But it’s still an unpopular, less-travelled road to get there.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. AMEN.