"Best Wishes" - Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon on the first Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2010

"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."

Like many of you, perhaps, I woke this morning eager and anxious for the latest news. At midnight our time—just ten hours ago—the United States and South Korea began military exercises in the Yellow Sea, just off the Korean peninsula, and so I braced myself when I opened my laptop for the most recent reports.

Global spotlights have shifted towards North and South Korea as tensions have mounted in that region, reminding the world that, technically speaking, the two nations have been at war for sixty years now.

For the past few weeks, I’ve contemplated preaching from the second chapter of Isaiah, basing this morning’s sermon largely on Isaiah’s vision of God’s reign, when the nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”—when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” In light of wars raging on in our world and in light of a new war on the brink of ignition, it’s been strange to conceive a biblical message that feels largely out of touch with reality.

We might call Isaiah 2:1-5 wishful thinking at best, at least in this day and age. Swords and spears—tools of war melted into farming implements as nations commit never to fight again. Often our best wishes fall short of depicting such a wistful, far-flung scenario.

Our faith ancestors, however, clung to Isaiah’s vision of peace. The Assyrians had already conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. From the Sea of Galilee down to the cities of Samaria and Bethel, Assyrian armies had swept through from the north. Jerusalem was next, and with it, the rest of Judah. Each and every day, the question for the Judeans wasn’t if the war would come, but when.

But the land of Judah did have some time—time enough, perhaps, to make some attempt at a defense before the Assyrians invaded. And so do you know what the Judeans did to get ready? They were mostly farmers, of course—not soldiers. Eight weeks of boot camp was probably unrealistic. No time for drills or maneuvers or officer training. But they did have time to do one thing, and so they did what they could. They gathered together their tools—all their farming tools—and they took the metal from those tools and melted it down to make weapons. Plows and spades, scythes, pitchforks, and pruning hooks… All of it could be reshaped to make helmets and shields, swords and spears.

The Judeans couldn’t use sickles and plowshares to fight the Assyrians, but in a week or so, they could exchange them for tools of war. And that’s what they did.

But, of course, this came with a high price. You can’t till the soil with a spear and you can’t plant wheat with a broad sword. If you exchange your farming tools for weapons, basically you give up on an entire harvest season—you commit yourself to your immediate survival, but you essentially write off the year to come. And you hope that, should you survive the Assyrian assault, you’ll be able to scrounge enough to make it through to the next planting season with enough time to turn your swords back into plowshares and your spears back into pruning hooks.

This is where the Judeans found themselves. On the brink of war with no other option than to melt their livelihood into some semblance of a military stand. Bleak. Hopeless. Wishful.

Not much has changed. Well, ok—a lot has changed. But still today the nations scrounge their own resources to attack and defend. Close to a quarter of our own federal budget is currently assigned to defense spending, and for the past several years, China has increased its military spending by close to 10% annually. It’s estimated that worldwide, annual military expenditures come close to 1200 billion US dollars. That is, of course, a staggering amount of money to spend again and again, year after year.

A question to consider is this: what if Isaiah was right? And what if a day could come when the nations said, “We’re not going to ‘learn war any more’?” What if the United States and China and Iraq and Afghanistan and North and South Korea… What if we all melted down swords and spears and tanks and shell casings, and what if we committed those global resources to other things?

Well, for starters, it would only take 10 billion dollars to provide enough technology and infrastructure to present the entire world with access to safe drinking water. Just 10 billion! Currently, half the developing world—over 2 billion men, women, and children—suffer because their water isn’t clean. But we could solve that with just a fraction of one year’s worth of global military spending.

This may not be possible in this day and age, but it is nonetheless a biblical image that our faith ancestors clung to. They longed for the day they could melt down their swords and spears and turn them into the things they needed to feed their children and build a life for themselves. But of course, in spite of their best wishes, they sharpened their swords and braced themselves for the day they’d have to use them.

Now as I move on, let me be clear. This morning I do not mean to oversimplify globally complex issues of military conflict. I do not mean to nurture a naïve vision of soldiers and drug lords and members of the Taliban merrily dancing around a bonfire of melting weaponry.

I do mean to say this, however: the world we have is not the world for which God wishes.

So then, it can be with renewed hope and possibility that we as Christians enter once again into this time of year we call “Advent.” “Advent” means “coming,” and in this spiritual season, friends, we commit our thinking and believing to Christ’s coming in our world and in our lives.

What does this mean? It means that no matter how damaged, worn, or broken our lives become—no matter how destructive our world may be and no matter how far we fall from God’s wishes, Christ is coming to make all things new.

Once there was this preacher who’d just graduated from seminary. She was installed in a small church and, eager to begin her ministry, she set a goal of personally visiting every family in the church within her first six months.

At the end of six months, she almost had it done. Only one family remained, but people said, “Don’t bother. They’re not coming back.” Ignoring those words, this young minister drove out to the couple’s house. The wife was home and she invited her in, made some coffee.

The conversation rolled from one thing to the next. They talked about this. They talked about that. And then, they talked about it.

Two years ago, the wife was home with their young son. She was vacuuming in the back bedroom and hadn’t checked on him in a little while, so she went into the den—and did not find him. She looked through the rest of the house—no sign of him. And then in a panic she followed his trail—through the back patio door, across the patio, to the swimming pool… and then she found him.

“At the funeral, our friends from church were very kind,” she said. “They told us it was God’s will.”

The minister put her coffee cup down on the table. Should she touch it? Should she touch it? She touched it. “Your friends meant well, but they were wrong. God does not will the death of children.”

The woman’s face reddened, and her jaw got firm. “They who do you blame? I guess you blame me.”

“No, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame God… I can’t explain it. I only know that God’s heart broke when yours did.”

The woman sat there with her arms crossed. It was clear that the conversation was over. On the way home, the pastor kept kicking herself. “Why didn’t I leave it alone?”

Several days later the phone rang. It was the wife. “We don’t know where this is going, but would you come out and talk with my husband and me? We assumed that God was angry with us; but maybe it’s the other way around.” (1)

Sometimes life feels beyond repair. The wound is too deep. The odds of recovery, insurmountable. Sometimes the pain of life is too great to bear. Too many swords, not enough plowshares. Too many bombs, not enough fresh water wells.

Our hope this Advent season is not simple wishful thinking. It is our hope in the Christ—the one who transforms the broken places in our lives—the one who transformed even the cross, that instrument of death, and made it a symbol of life and new life.

Our hope is in Christ, the one who melts our suspicions and fears,and reshapes them into new images of promise and possibility. It is in Christ, then, that all our best hopes, our best dreams, and our best wishes lie. Amen.

(1) A story from the sermons of the Rev. Tom Long.