A Longing for a Just World -- Isaiah 11:1-10 (2nd Sunday of Advent)

Artwork: Edward Hicks, public domain

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

Last week, Isaiah offered us this vision of a world where the powers and the people beat their swords into plowshares – turn their spears into pruning hooks – all the tools of war, transformed into tools of planting and harvest, of community, and of peace.

This week, Isaiah gives us this further vision of a “peaceable kingdom” – the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, the leopard with the goat, a cow, a bear, a lion, and a little child to lead them all– a world where, God says, “they neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain” – a world full of peace and harmony and life.^[1]

Whether we are standing in Isaiah’s troubled world, or our own, we long for a world that looks like this.

Both of these visions – this week and last – these images are iconic. The “peaceable kingdom” – when I read that Scripture – I can see it from my childhood, a picture from my children’s Bible growing up. That painting we looked at with the kids. We’ve seen that before. Maybe we’ve heard the image quoted – with the animals shuffled around a bit – “the lion lies down with the lamb.” (Did you know that the artist created over 60 versions of this “peaceable kingdom” over the course of his life – each with the animals living together in foreground – eyes wide open, as if they are startled by the peace.)^[2]

Note Isaiah’s artistry. Out of a world of war, Isaiah (both prophet and poet), takes these pairs of animals – predator with their pray^[3] – and imagines them lying down with each other – all curled up – taking a nap – getting some rest. We can see it. Wolf and lamb. Leopard and goat. Lion and calf. What we would expect... is that one would be devouring the other. (Circle of life and all that.) But in this vision – there is no thought of that. There is no thought of aggression or domination or violence. Just life.

Wouldn’t that be lovely?

So lovely, that it leads one writer to ask –

“Is this vision a prophecy or a fairy tale?”^[4]

Hold on to those visions. And remember, these two visions – this week’s and last’s – are but glimpses of hope that Isaiah offers – in the midst of all that Isaiah has to say about what is bad wrong in the world. Isaiah is after all, a prophet. And prophets first say true things about what must come to an end in the world – all the oppression, violence, and exploitation, and then – and only then – they offer a vision of the new things that God is bringing forth.^[5]

And just before this Scripture from chapter 11, Isaiah has been very clear – about what is bad wrong – about what must come to an end. “Woe to you” Isaiah says in chapter 10 – “Woe to those who make unjust laws... who issue oppressive decrees... who deny the poor their rights... who withhold justice from the oppressed.” The Hebrew Scriptures do not stutter on this point. They speak clearly again and again. The governments and nations that God will not abide are those “who make unjust laws... who issue oppressive decrees... who deny the poor their rights... who withhold justice from the oppressed.” In their day, and in ours.

And, in the verses that lead into the passage we read today – the prophet brings it home, God will topple those powers – lop off the boughs, fell the lofty trees, cut down the forest thickets. Those powers will be cut down to a stump.

So we have, with clarity, what God is bringing to an end. And we have these visions of the new world God is bringing to life. Thanks be to God that Isaiah also gives us a glimpse of how we get from here to there.

A shoot shall grow out of the stump. There’s the stump – what’s left over from the world we have wrecked – from the failure of kings and regimes to govern with justice. And there is yet a shoot – a sprig of new life – “a faint sign of life, growth, and possibility.”^[6] And that new life unfolds (verses 1-5) in this image of what Biblical scholars call “the just king” – maybe what we could more broadly think of as “a just government” or a “just community.” And this – this just community – this is the way that will open up, in verses 6-10, into God’s peaceable kingdom.

God equips this “just king,” this “just community” with God’s own Spirit. In the Hebrew Scriptures this Spirit – this ruah – is God’s breath of creation, from the beginning and now; it is the discerning word given to prophets; it is God’s authorizing word for leaders.^[7] Where the regime that is now a stump failed with its oppressive laws and orders, with all the ways it deprived the poor and harmed the vulnerable – what comes to life is governance/community built and equipped with different values: The spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and power – as one writer puts it – “practical wisdom that enables leaders/a community to face reality [clearly, and honestly], and deal fairly.” O, for leaders like that!

The Spirit equips this “just leader” – this “just community” with knowledge of God and fear of God. Knowledge of God – that’s awareness to see God present in all things – to discern how God is moving in the world. And fear of God – that confounding “fear of the Lord” – I think I’ve finally found a way to articulate that. That biblical “fear of God” is the sense that God is God, and we are not. It is (1) healthy humility – we are not the ultimate deciders in this world (thanks be to God), and it is (2) the just-as-healthy assurance that God calls and equips us together to join God in mending and tending and healing this broken world.

But most importantly... central to this vision... this “just leader” – this “just community” rising up in this vision in Isaiah – is governance that centers the poor and the vulnerable. “With righteousness they will judge for the poor and the needy, with justice they will render decisions for the poor of the earth.” That’s it. That is the touchstone. That is the test – for all leaders and all kings, for all communities, for all governments:

·      Do you deprive the poor and harm the vulnerable? You will fall. (Isaiah, chapter 10)

·      OR, will you join God in centering the poor and vulnerable and growing a new world from there? Together, you and the whole world will thrive. (Isaiah, chapter 11)

That should give us hope, but I hope that it also sets us on edge. We have a sense, in our gut, of what this looks like, in our own world. Just a few weeks ago, our government was willing to risk cutting off food support to the most vulnerable in this country as part of its government shut down mess. Our government was willing to let its people go hungry – the most vulnerable among us – as a bargaining chip – as a threat in a political stalemate. If you do not bend the knee and concede, we will cut off food support. Or, today, we could talk about how access to health care is now at risk, particularly for those who need it the most.  

A “just government” doesn’t play games with the health, with the hunger of its people. The vision in Isaiah is clear. A “just government” centers the poor and the vulnerable – feeds the hungry – considers that a primary and sacred trust.

These are but moments among many – glimpses of a government intent on the rich getting richer, at the expense of... well, everyone else.

I read an African biblical scholar this week, whose take on this vision was even more of a gut punch. She reads the book of Isaiah from the perspective of an African woman in a formerly colonized nation, and she sees Europe and America as the Babylonian Empire, and formerly colonized peoples as the remnant that God is returning and restoring.^[8]

It’s a clear directive – do you center the poor and the vulnerable, or do you harm them? Navigating that directive wisely and justly is the singular path to this vision of a peaceable kingdom. It is God’s Way.

What we are talking about here is shalom. That word we mentioned a few weeks ago – the Hebrew word that everybody knows.  When I asked you then, you didn’t miss a beat: Shalom is more than peace – it is peace with justice – it is wholeness – wholeness in community. As one writer puts it, shalom is “a rich term that includes restoration of health, cessation of hostility, and enrichment of individual and community life.” ^[9] It is not abstract or ethereal. It is never disembodied. Shalom happens in real space and in real people. As one scholar explains, this vision in Isaiah – like the whole of the Old Testament – expresses a theory of government that “centers the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant; that attends to issues of equity and justice for the vulnerable; that ends all aggression and domination.”^[10]

There’s a lot of talk these days about “affordability.” I think that reflects a longing of families sitting at kitchen tables across the country trying to make ends meet – living paycheck to paycheck  -- longing for enough so that they don’t have to choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table and making sure that health care is there when they need it. It is the longing of a family for enough to live and thrive.

Shalom takes that worthy longing one giant step further. Shalom longs for that for all people – enough to live and thrive for this day and the next – for all people, for all families. And, then shalom insists that we work with God, together, to build a world to make it so.

Let me be clear – I am not talking about one political party over another. This regime will fail and fall. All regimes do. The question is not how we will return to the way things were:  a two-party system powered by entrenched interests driven mostly by money; the underlying systems that have always benefitted a few at the expense of the many – the systems that enabled this regime to come to power. The question is not: How will we get back to the systems that have long oppressed the vulnerable? The question is: What will we build and grow together, and with God, that is new and fresh and free? That brings shalom? That brings life?

We’re starting out Advent with these two visions from Isaiah. I noticed this week that it has worked out that we are also starting this Advent celebrating both of our sacraments – last week baptism, this week communion. Our sacraments – these moments where we embody the words we say – our sacraments give us this vision, too. In baptism, we see and remember that each of us is a beloved child of God embraced in the family of God. The good we pray for one, we pray for everyone. And in communion, we see and remember this table where Christ gathered his friends, and journeyed with them through all the hard things in life even into death, so that we might all find our way to life, together.

This longing for a just world is part of what it is to be human. It is a longing that wells up deep within us. It is a longing that we share with all those who have gone before us, and everyone around the world.

And. It is God’s longing. God longs to build a world with us that centers the poor and the vulnerable, so that everyone can live and thrive – so that everyone can live together in peace – the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the goat, the little child to lead them all, every child, of every ethnicity, race, and nation.

At Advent, with God, we are longing for a world where we transform our swords into plowshares; we are longing for a peaceable kingdom; we are longing for a table where everyone is welcome, and everyone has enough to live and to thrive, this day and the next. At Advent, we name these deep, human longings, and we watch, and wait, and work – as these longings come to life and are met, in the coming of the Christ, and in us.

© 2025 Scott Clark

^[1] For general background on this text and the Book of Isaiah, see Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998); Bruce C. Birch, Commentary in Feasting on the Word, Year A, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), pp.26-31; Makhosazana K. Nzimande in The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), pp. 136-146; Stacey Simpson Duke, Commentary in Feasting on the Word, Year A, vol. 1 (Louisville, KY; Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), pp.26-31; Marvin A. McMickle, Commentary in Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year A (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), pp.12-13; Gene M. Tucker, “The Book of Isaiah,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. vi (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), pp.27-70.

^[2]  For background on this work, see https://www.pafa.org/museum/collection/item/peaceable-kingdom  Also note tragic irony in reading this painting in 2025. In representations of the peaceable kingdom, the artist Edward Hicks typically presented the peaceable kingdom in the foreground, with a contemporary scene in the background. In this painting, he depicts a peace treaty that William Penn made with indigenous nations; the artist offers it as an image of peace. We know, however, that the history of indigenous peoples is a history of treaties made and then broken by the federal government. This painting holds the vision of peace alongside our tragic, present and continuing reality.

^[3] See Tucker, p. 139.

^[4] See Simpson Duke, p.26.

^[5] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1978), pp.13-14.

^[6] See Brueggemann, Isaiah, p.99.

^[7] See Tucker, pp.140-141

^[8] See Nzimande, supra.

^[9] See W. Eugene Marsh, “The Book of Haggai,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. vii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), p.724.

^[10] See Brueggemann, Isaiah, pp.101-102