Peace Can’t Wait
There is a design principle that has been becoming increasingly popular in which humans use techniques that mimic the natural world. It’s called permaculture. Loosely, permaculture comes from the idea of permanent agriculture. The idea is that if nature can naturally renew itself, then humans could adopt the renewal processes in nature and better care for world around us. As a Christian, I understand these natural processes in nature to be the design of God.
In contrast to nature, we humans typically use things in a way that does not replenish them. We use something until it is gone. And agriculture has become exactly that. Today, farmers use tons of fertilizers and chemicals to grow crops because they have used up all the nutrients in the crops that the plants need to grow. The soil isn’t much more than a medium to plant crops in. Everything the crop needs to grow has to be added artificially.
Permaculture reverses this. It mimics the way God designed creation in order to naturally renew and replenish the health and nutrients in the soil. Basically, it gets us much closer to the days when farmers used mulching and manure spreaders to feed their soil rather than the man made chemicals of today.
One of the techniques that we used on our farm in Lincolnton, NC was what we call Chop and Drop. That is, we would intentionally grow some plants or shrubs that were very quick growing and prolific. We would come through our field and chop the leaves and limbs from those plants, and literally just drop them on the ground. Those leaves and limbs would then do several things:
- Suppress weeds,
- Encourage micro-organisms that are good for the soil
- Decay over time, and
- fertilize the soil for our other crops.
This is exactly the way a forest works as leaves and tree branches fall to the forest floor to renew and enrich the forest soil. So we mimic the way the forest renews the soil by using the Chop and Drop method.
One of the processes that helps chop and drop is called coppicing where we cut a shrub or tree all the way back to its stump. Not every plant can handle this, but many can. After being cut back at the appropriate time of year, the shrub or tree will begin to sprout new shoots and grow again. And, as is often the case, the plant grow fuller after coppicing!
But here is what is really amazing: Coppicing keeps a tree at a young age. And, regular coppicing can actually keep a tree alive forever!
Interesting thought in light of our faith. In order to live forever, a tree must be regularly cut down to its stump – seemingly dead – so that it can spout new shoots and grow again. This is literally everlasting life for the tree. But it requires cutting it back to almost death.
I can’t say for sure, but I highly suspect that this is what Isaiah had in mind when he spoke about a shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse. Isaiah most likely knew of this process of renewal built by God into the very fabric of creation. And it is this cutting down, this dead stump, that is so key to Isaiah’s message.
The image Isaiah paints is one of peace – what the Israelites called Shalom – a word meaning wholeness, well-being, peace, health, and goodness. But this shalom is not something magical that God zaps into existence. Peace comes from coppicing, from cutting down a tree to its stump. Peace comes from pruning back what looks alive and vibrant.
And in this way the process to peace looks a lot like repentance. How so? Repent means to stop, to turn around and go a different direction. And that is literally what coppicing does to a tree. It stops the tree dead in its tracks and forces it to start over and grow a new direction.
The truth is, pruning is a great image for repentance. It involves cutting back the dead limbs, the overgrowth. Cutting back what appears alive today, but will eventually hurt the plant if not thinned.
In a world where people believe that peace is established by the power and might of a nation keeping the peace, we Christian need to remember that God says peace comes through repentance. We need to be reminded that God built a world to show us that peace comes through pruning, through cutting back, not growing ever stronger and powerful.
Isaiah paints a beautiful picture of this peace through the image of the wolf and the lamb lying down together. (Notice its not a lion, its a wolf!) The only way a wolf lies down with a lamb is to repent of his very nature in being a predator. The wolf must turn in a new direction. The wolf must cut his very self back to his core and grow in a new direction – one where he is no longer predator, but instead a friend and ally.
So here’s the thing. I know this sounds crazy. There are some of you thinking, that all sounds nice. But the real world doesn’t work that way.
I am gonna respond in a really bold way: Do you believe in God or not? Do you believe in Jesus Christ and his life and ministry and death and resurrection or not?
Our faith is based on believing what we cannot see. So maybe what you see says to you that peace being about repentance is nice but not realistic. Maybe what you see in the real world says you need power and position and strength and might to establish and keep peace.
Well, one of our greatest modern day theologians, Richard Rohr, says this:
Until the mind changes, nothing changes.
In fact, when Rohr talks about repentance using the Greek word metanoia. He says this:
The Greek word metanoia, poorly translated as repent in the Bible, quite literally means to change your mind.
There something ironic about that. Peace requires repentance. But we think it requires power and might. And that mindset is part of what we need to repent from.
Two weeks ago, as we talked about gratitude and changing our perspective of the world around us, I shared with you about Paul’s struggle to live in the world in the way he knew he should. Paul wanted to do right and think right and live right. But he couldn’t. And Paul’s answer was that famous verse from his letter to the Romans: we must “be transformed by the renewing of your mind!”
And brothers and sisters, as Father Rohr also says:
Once the mind changes, the heart will follow.
Peace comes from repentance, from pruning oneself, from chopping one’s self down to a stump. Yes, when you see a coppiced plant, it looks dead. But you must repent from what you see. You must see what will be that is not yet. We repeated that line over and over last week as we hung the Christmas decorations around this sanctuary encouraging one another to see the truth of these symbols:
- Life in the midst of death (evergreens and poinsettias)
- Light in the midst of darkness (candles and lights)
This is the shalom – the peace and wholeness – of our faith: Trusting and believing and knowing that there is a God-reality that looks different that the real world we see around us. Trusting that what the eyes see is not all there is.
We must change our minds and allow our hearts to follow. That is the way of Christ. No one believed a virgin could conceive. No one believe the blind could see again. No one believed the lame could walk and the deaf could hear again. But Jesus came to show us that what we see is not all there is. Jesus came to bring repentance, that is, to change our minds that our hearts would follow. Until this happens with Christians, nothing will ever change!
We must see sprouts within dead stumps. We must see wolves lying down with lambs. We must see the cow and bear grazing together. We must see lions eating straw instead of flesh. We must see a child leading us!
So tell me that what Isaiah’s says about peace and repentance is nice but not the real world. And I say to you have faith in the God you say you believe in. Have faith in the Jesus Christ who you gave your life to. Have faith that a virgin can conceive and bear a son who will rule the world with the truth and the grace that Isaiah speaks of! Have faith! Change your mind! Repent of what the world has taught you. Be transformed by renewing – by changing – your mind!
Peace comes through repentance. And Dead stumps can live again!