I happen to know for a fact that a few of you are New York Times crossword puzzle fans, like me. If so, I hope you worked last Sunday’s puzzle. It was a fun one. It featured several rebus squares, single squares that might contain multiple letters, a numeral or a symbol instead of the usual single letter. In last Sunday’s puzzle, each of the rebus squares contained two letters, the letters O and N spelling the word ‘ON’. That was the toughest part to figure out. But once you got it, you being to find squares with ON in them all over the puzzle. And as every crossword geek knows, in the Sunday Times puzzle, the longer answers usually have something to do with the theme of the puzzle, which on Sunday’s is alluded to, usually obliquely, in the title of the puzzle. Last Sunday’s puzzle was entitled “A Shining Moment”. That coupled with the repeated ONs in the puzzle seemed to be of a piece, seemed to have something to do with the theme. Sure enough, some of the longer answers in the puzzle spelled out the phrases “ROCKEFELLER CENTER,” “THE TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY” AND “THE WEDNESDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING.” And there was a little extra puzzle treat as well -- when you drew a line to connect all the squares with ON in them, you get the outline of a Christmas Tree. Cool puzzle.
Except, in what we puzzle geeks know is a rare occurrence, the puzzle was wrong. The Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Ceremony wasn’t on the first Wednesday after Thanksgiving this year as it almost always has been in the past. It was on Tuesday after Thanksgiving. This prompted quite a back and forth on the New York Times puzzle blog and elsewhere on the web. And yeah, I’m that big a puzzle geek! I read blogs about the crossword puzzle. (Hey, don’t judge me!) 
Questions were posted on the blogs about why Rockefeller Center had forsworn tradition this year. Other blog posters were quick to answer. The Wednesday after Thanksgiving this year was also the first night of Hanukkah. Perhaps Rockefeller Center moved the tree lighting up so as not to conflict with the lighting of the big Hanukkah Menorah at 5th Avenue and 59th. No one could confirm this motivation on Rockefeller Center’s part – not even Rockefeller Center when I called the press office there this week. But it seems likely and if it is, in fact, the case, I say, good for you, Rockefeller Center.It’s nice to think that here in New York City, we’re not so hidebound by our civic and semi-religious traditions that we can’t be flexible enough to accommodate others' celebrations and traditions. The Apostle Paul would be proud of Rockefeller Center.
Our second reading this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. There was quite a bit of tension between Jews and Gentiles in Rome at the time and that tension was, of course, felt in the Christian community there -- which was comprised of both Jewish Christians and Gentile converts to Christianity. Throughout Romans, Paul stresses tolerance to both parties, and tries to make them see that while the revelation of Christ to the world is certainly the revelation of the Jewish messiah, that is certain, but that this revelation is meant to be a revelation to the whole world. Jesus is everyone’s messiah.
In our reading today, Paul is urging the Jewish Christians in Rome to remember the Scriptures, and the prophecies that foretell the coming of a messiah that would be venerated by the Gentiles as well as by the Jews. And that messiah has come in the person of Jesus Christ. It is Paul’s hope that the Romans -- and we -- might, as he puts it, “live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together (we) may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We see a similar vein running through our reading from Isaiah. In these verses, Isaiah articulates what has been called “The Peaceable Kingdom”. And that is certainly what we see, isn’t it? In Isaiah’s Utopian vision of this Peaceable Kingdom to come, the wolf lies with the lamb, and the lion and the ox feed on straw side by side. And Isaiah says this is the kingdom that will come into being when the messiah, the shoot springing forth from the tree of Jesse, comes into the world.
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It was announced on Friday that biblical scholar and Emory University senior fellow Luke Timothy Johnson had won the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion, in large part for his recent book Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity. In it, Professor Johnson writes that early Christians unfairly demonized other religions, particularly pagan sects, when in actual fact, Christians and pagans in that time had much in common. Both groups prayed for and sought divine intervention for their suffering. Both Christianity and the pagan sects promoted moral improvement. Some pagan sects and some apocalyptic Christians felt themselves to be at odds with the corruption of the world and longed for a better life hereafter. There was common ground to be found between religious groups in the ancient world, but our ancestors in the faith refused to see it. There was a possibility then for the Peaceable Kingdom to break through into this world, but we squandered the chance -- and so soon, too, after the coming of the hoped for messiah. Johnson writes, “Christianity's failure to adequately come to grips with its first pagan neighbors inhibits any positive effort to engage present-day adherents of world religions." According to Professor Johnson, we don’t take the vision of the Prophet Isaiah nor the admonitions of the Apostle Paul much to heart – in fact, we never really have. It seems from the very beginning, we haven’t known how to bring about the Peaceable Kingdom, or maybe we haven’t really wanted to.
We thought everyone had to be like us – and very many of us still do. But that’s not what Isaiah’s prophesy says. Isaiah doesn’t say that the lion is to lie down only with other lions. Isaiah doesn’t proclaim that the lamb should spurn the wolf -- quite the opposite in fact. Nor are we to claim some sort of ascendancy over others because of who we are or where we come from. In our gospel reading today, John the Baptist tells the Pharisees not to rely upon the fact that they can claim Abraham as their ancestor, and with that assertion lay exclusive claim to salvation. It is God in Christ who decides which are wheat and which are chaff to be burned in the fire. Not the likes of you or me.
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Professor Johnson may look on the early Christians with a critical eye, and he can certainly make the case that we similarly fail to heed the words of Paul and Isaiah in our own day. But I hope we’ve gotten a little better in all that time. I hope we’ve become a little more opened hearted. Maybe a bit…
Here’s one example, I think. Not too many years ago, our bishop, Mark Sisk, led our diocese in an effort to help foster the Peaceable Kingdom in Afghanistan. Not without encountering criticism, the diocese of New York helped raise funds to rebuild a mosque in Afghanistan that had been destroyed by US-led troops in the weeks just after September 11th. At the time, the bishop was quoted in the New York Times saying ''All people are children of God… we need to respect each other and respect other religions. From the deepest level, this is a conviction on my part. God loves the villagers of Afghanistan.''Those are words that Isaiah would commend. Advent is a time of hope, it is a time of expectation, anticipation for the kingdom to come. Well, I don’t know if Rockefeller Center moved up the tree lighting ceremony this year out of deference to our Jewish brothers and sisters and their feast of Hanukkah. But I hope that’s why. It’s not quite as profound an action as rebuilding a bombed out mosque, but it’s the right thing to do. It might not cause the Peaceable Kingdom to break through into our world, but it helps.
It takes big actions and small ones to build the Peaceable Kingdom. It takes ferocious lions and little lambs, fearsome wolfs, big bears, and a little child to lead them. And this is our hope, and our prayer: Come, Lord Jesus. Come again to find us at peace with one another, side by side, ready to greet you with joy. Amen
©The Rev. Mark R. Collins
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