Swords into Plows

Isaiah 2:1-5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 

Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 

He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Recently at Monument Valley Middle School, one student told a number of Jewish students that he wanted to “nuke the Jews” and that they were “on his list.” The Rabbis from Hevreh met with school officials and then together, they all invited community and faith leaders to meet in Stockbridge. We learned, that sadly, this is not a one time thing. Each year the schools see some sort of incident like this. One year it might be racist, another it will be anti-immigrant, and another year it is anti-Semitic... but it’s something every year. That reality was disturbing but the meeting wasn’t all bad. I came away VERY impressed with how much work the schools have been doing now for YEARS to teach students about hate and bias and to create a safe environment for all students. I don’t like that this happens year after year, but those school professionals have come to understand that this work must be an ongoing effort, because new students continually stream together to learn.

Isaiah’s vision also recognizes an ever flowing stream of people coming together from all over the world.  He too recognizes that people coming together bring all their differences, and inevitably they bring their swords and spears as well. That’s why Isaiah’s vision includes the need for “arbitrating” between the people! Isaiah’s a realist! He expects when people come together from all over the world, they aren’t going to just magically begin to live together in a world of rainbows, unicorns and lollipops! When different people come together, they ALWAYS need help working through their differences and they will need to learn new ways to do that beyond the long-studied ways of swords and spears!

In Isaiah’s vision, that learning is described as beating swords and spears, into plows and pruning hooks. They learn a way to live, NOT out of their fear of loosing place or privilege or their fear of scarcity that is always made worse by swords and spears. They learn instead to live in a way that creates a shared abundance with plows and pruning hooks.  They learn to GROW new life... TOGETHER! This new life however, isn’t a life without differences.  Isaiah’s vision is clear! We don’t live on the mountain of the Lord’s house by homogenizing the world into a colorless, flavorless, slurry of humanity. We live on that mountain by working to help each person and each group of people, grow into the fullness that God created them to be! This is a mountain filled with all the different colors, music, flavors, dances and expressions of joy with which God has blessed the earth. God knows, it is in learning how to share and celebrate all our diversity that we will have real and lasting and abundant life!

Isaiah admits though, making this vision a reality takes a lot of hard work. To beat swords and spears into plows and pruning hooks means heating that metal to over 2000° F. That’s just to get it to the forging temperature, to say nothing of the energy needed after that to shape the metal into something new. And just as the schools seem to have experienced, this is work that never ends.  There are always more swords and more spears brought by more and different people that will always need to be worked into plowshares and pruning hooks. It is simply part of the reality of our world that the ways of swords and spears are taught to our children with both spoken and unspoken lessons. We all do our best raising our kids. But all too often our best comes out of our own brokenness and ends up defaulting to the ways of swords and spears.  The ever flowing stream of people who, out of fear, pick up swords, spears, guns, bias and hate in an attempt to free themselves of what they fear… Those people… US PEOPLE… we need continual Divine In-Breakings to teach us over and over new ways to walk and live together in this world.  

Isaiah’s vision was a Divine In-Breaking, teaching us that embracing our diversity is the way to live and thrive together in the world. It is a Divine In-Breaking that happens in our schools when caring professionals break into student’s lives with compassion and intentionality to teach them new ways to move through their fears. Each Advent is also a Divine In-Breaking where we are reminded that the infant Jesus broke into our world in the most vulnerable way, to teach us how to walk in the Way of the Lord AND that we are also called to look forward to more Divine In-Breakings where Christ enters into our world and our lives again and again, continually teaching us, that the path to abundant life is not made with swords and spears but is grown together with our neighbors by plowing and pruning.

What is our part in this Divine In-Breaking here in South County? How can we help our schools do the hard work of turning fear into calm, hate into compassion and swords into plowshares? What would it look like for us as a congregation… as the Body of Christ… to come to the mountain of the Lord’s House with others, not to homogenize one another into one way of being, but to work together to grow a diverse and abundant life for all people? I invite you to join me in letting those questions become a part of your Advent this year and together see what God’s vision might be for us to join in this Divine In-Breaking work when this year’s Advent season comes to a close. Amen.