Before we turn to Isaiah,
I’d like to thank our new Director of Music, Tom Honeyman, and the Minster choir,
and our visiting organist Charles Wooler, for leading us in responding to what
God has done for us in and through Jesus. Our hope is that this service of Choral
Evensong might be a place where people encounter Jesus and are enabled to
respond – to ‘come and see,’ as we were reminded in the Gospel reading this
morning. That it will be a place of epiphany, whatever the Season. We look
forward to seeing things develop over the coming months, and I would encourage
us all to come and see, and invite others to do the same.
In Isaiah chapter 60, there is a vision of a city which includes
representatives of the nations coming on camels bearing gold and frankincense.
They turn up before the verses we heard read today, but it is for this reason that
this chapter is read and meditated on during the Season of Epiphany, when we
remember the bringing of gifts to the infant Jesus.
It is a vision of a city made beautiful by the immigration of
many different people-groups, bringing their resources, their skill, their
particular traditions and solutions and innovations.
Indeed, it is a city rebuilt by a multicultural international
community, after it has been deeply damaged and its population displaced as a
result of international conflict.
It is a city free from
security worries, because former enemies have become friends, and those who
refuse to share in this vision of friendship and partnership have perished –
not ‘are destroyed by the city’ but self-destruct, fail to reproduce, die out,
their own vision of nationhood left abandoned.
It is a city at the heart
of a nation surrounded by ally nations.
It is a city built on
humbly receiving what others offer – recognising its dependence on others, as
dependent as a breast-fed baby – not on arrogantly taking what belongs to
others from them.
It is a city of divine
light and glory.
It is not any existing city, but a city that could be. Isaiah imagines what
Jerusalem, in ruins, could become, rising from the ashes. But it could equally
be Paris, or London, or New York, or the cities of northern Nigeria, or
northern England.
At the heart of the
vision, God says that he will appoint
Peace as their overseer and Righteousness as their taskmaster.
Allegorically, the city
can refer to Christ (the one to whom representatives of the nations came,
bearing gold and frankincense), to the one appointed by God to establish peace
and righteousness. He is the Peaceful overseer and Righteous taskmaster,
appointed, as the writer to the scattered Hebrews
puts it, to the order of Melchizedek, the ‘king of righteousness’ and ‘king of
peace.’ He is the Peace-full overseer and Righteous taskmaster, not imposed but given – not imposed but
nonetheless appointed – to Jerusalem,
and Paris and London and New York and the cities of northern Nigeria and
northern England, for he has been revealed to all the peoples. He is the one in
whom God and humanity are made one, the one in whom the earthly city and the
heavenly city coincide.
Let us, then, reflect on the
nature of peace and righteousness. Living
in peace doesn’t just happen, it needs to be worked on, needs to be built,
painstakingly, with strong foundations, and quality material. Righteousness –
living in right relationship with others – doesn’t just happen, but is hard
work for which we need direction, and at times arbitration. Jesus does not
appear as a man with a message, but as a child who ‘grew and became strong,
filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him’ and who ‘increased in
wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour’ (Luke 2:40 and 52).
For peace and
righteousness to flourish, I need to make my contribution, and so must you; and
we must learn to value one another’s contribution. For peace and righteousness
to flourish, my contribution must also be directed, and so must yours. Choral
Evensong might just be a living, breathing illustration of this; and, indeed, a
rehearsal in which we learn and
practice skills that can be called upon in all our dealings with our
neighbours.
This isn’t a vision about
imposing anything on anyone, but a vision of submitting ourselves, our gifts,
how they might be deployed and who we might labour alongside, to the
God-supported work of establishing and maintaining and expanding and sharing
peace and righteousness.
And although it may sound
naïve, it is a vision that has been
fulfilled, albeit incompletely and temporarily, many times over, where
people of different peoples have come together. In the face of destruction,
what we do here, rooted in tradition, is a prophetic
act, looking to the future with those who came before us.
So let us pray.
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