<\/p>\n
Advent lectionary on the PCUSA website has Isaiah 11: 1-9 listed multiple times.\u00a0 The narrative is titled \u201cThe Peaceful Kingdom\u201d in my NRSV Bible.\u00a0The narrative offers an image of peace:\u00a0 wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, calf and lion, cow and bear.\u00a0The powerful shall be led by a little child.\u00a0A child can play alongside the most poisonous of snakes. In this vision\u2014it will be a promised reality because the knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth\u2014like the waters cover the sea.<\/p>\n
This is the stuff of Christmas cards, Christmas pageants, and simple songs. It is not the logo for living life too much of the time; rather, it is an ideal, as a sometime far-off hope, a gentle political vision; a day in December with candlelight and soft songs; careful drawings of lion in protective embrace of the innocent-eyed lamb.\u00a0These verses shaped my identity from the time I was a small child. It seems ordinary to imagine in my little girl mind a lion and a lamb\u2014mostly.\u00a0 It seems still that is the primary relationship between animals recalled this time of year, though here in this particular set of verses\u2014it is a lion and a wolf. Not so much the adder and child intertwined, or the bear and the cow, the leopard and the goat.\u00a0Intriguing though to consider in my adult imagination\u2014even now\u2014less possible perhaps given the graphic video narratives of snakes of the world or the great grizzlies to the North or the gray wolf packs making their way through blizzard conditions. There is a tension in this tri-part book of Isaiah.<\/p>\n
One of a poetic vision, like this text, and another one of enemies which impede the reality of the vision requiring a resilient hope of a kind we are not accustomed to consider.\u00a0Enemies of our own making and enemies who see us with fear. This tension weaves back and forth throughout the book.\u00a0When all else fails there is a possible possibility for a future not yet experienced because after all we know really how lions, adders, wolves and bears are driven by instinct. We need to protect ourselves from the enemies which abound all around us.<\/p>\n
I have learned to assume nothing in this biblical text or in any other part of scripture.\u00a0 I cringe when preachers are so certain in the preaching of a text.\u00a0I\u2019d rather not hear it for they assume a certainty and a quickness which is not present in Isaiah. Those who know this text intimately, have studied it for all their adult lives, are keenly aware of its patient and careful construction aimed toward a particular set of present moments to evoke the patient promise of participating in renewal and restoration.\u00a0It is as one scholarly author titled his book:\u00a0 prophecy and propaganda.<\/p>\n
In Advent, if it is to be purposive, is it not to challenge? Lay the groundwork for the courage to consider a shift from constant fear and what feeds it to faith and what fulfills it?\u00a0To do so requires of us courage and patience and vulnerability and honesty. From whence does faith come?\u00a0The point is not an idealized lion and lamb in warm embrace\u2014the point is facing the abyss and the terror\u2014understanding the waters and the sea as one.<\/p>\n
Written by the Rev. Dr. Susan Kendall, Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Advent lectionary on the PCUSA website has Isaiah 11: 1-9 listed multiple times.\u00a0 The narrative is titled \u201cThe Peaceful Kingdom\u201d in my NRSV Bible.\u00a0The narrative offers an image of peace:\u00a0 wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, calf and lion, cow and bear.\u00a0The powerful shall be led by a little child.\u00a0A child can play alongside…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[8,14,16,36,40],"series":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theological-reflection","tag-bible-study","tag-community-worship","tag-festivals-and-holy-days","tag-spiritual-journeys","tag-women-in-ministry"],"yoast_head":"\r\n