PROPER 28C

 Imagine this…you’ve been driven out of your home, far away from everything familiar. You’ve been taken captive by negative, angry, vengeful people who want nothing more than to have you wait on them hand and foot. How would you react? Rebel? Seethe? Accept? Dream of a better day?
In this morning’s readings from Isaiah —both our first reading and the canticle are readings the Prophet Isaiah wrote to the people of Israel, imprisoned in Babylon. Isaiah heard God promise to return the Israelites to their homeland, to free them from their oppressors returning them to the the land of milk and honey. Isaiah writes: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,the lion shall eat straw like the ox;”  In other words, the lion need not be feared the lamb will frolick with the wolf—no more danger,hate or fear. This dream is given to the captives and they hold onto it…it helps, it gets them through.
    But, this dream’s not reserved for only the ancient Israelites, it’s the same dream that drove our forebears to leave their homelands and come to America, to——as my ancestors did—-escape persecution for being protestant Irish.
It’s what our Irish, Italian, Russian, Polish, Greek and other ancestors did. it’s what the Ukranian family we’ve been assisting is doing as they fled their war-torn home to find a safe place of opportunity for their children, here.
It’s what, in recent years, Afghani, Iraqi, Burmese, Bantu, Syrian and countless others have done. It’s what Mexican, Cuban, Central American and South American families do today. It’s what’s colored humanity forever: when it is no good here, we travel there, hoping for a fresh start, a safe place, new opportunites.
This dream should unify us—-for we’ve all come from away. Most of our ancestors were fueled by this universal dream of things getting better, of the bad times not having the last word, of the good and the hopeful and the light prevailing because what we know is this: God loves us too much to have us suffer endlessly.
    And so we have Isaiah, painting a picture of a world that, as I so often say, refelcts the dream of God rather than the nightmare we’ve created. We can hold onto Isaiah…and we need to as we enter this pre-Advent and Advent time.
[OK…sidebar: back in the 8th century or so Advent was 6 weeks long, not four. Because of this our readings the couple of weeks before the First Sunday of Advent are full of apocalyptic (end times) imagery. Advent is a season of anticipating the coming of God in the flesh, Jesus of Nazareth—as the baby away in a manger and as the Risen one, who will return. In Advent we look forward to the first coming as we await the second.]
 So here we are, two weeks before Advent, hearing the soothing dream language of Isaiah promising that the strife of the current day will end and we’ll be returned to the land of peace, love and light. A place where all matter of things shall be well.
    So what does that do for us today? Well hopefully it reminds us that no matter how dark the night, no matter how long the struggle, no matter how terrifying the nightmare, horror never ever has the last word. We may be suffering now and in some way I know many of you here today are —worried, frightened, lonely——but it will not win, it will not last, it will no prevail. For in God there is only one promise: that God loves us more than we can ever love ourselves so no matter how deep the despair, no matter how painful the memory… no matter how terrifying the prognosis, God is here.
It’s how the Israelites survived their captivity, it’s how the enslaved people of 19th century America survived, it’s how our forebears survived and it’s how the Ukranian people and all who suffer for the sake of conscience across the globe survive each day:
in sure and certain hope that Isaiah’s dream is God’s reality, all we have to do is make it so.
Amen