Isaiah 2:1-5. . . 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 anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
Isaiah saw the word.
What an interesting way to begin this passage, this vision from so long ago. . . Isaiah saw the word. The scripture begins, “The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.” And then the prophet tells us what he saw. He translates his vision into words which we imagine, which we revision, which we picture anew. From sight to words to sight again.
Yes, we see the vision too: A mountain tall and established. Firm and sturdy. The highest of mountains, visible from distances far away in every direction. And though the mountain captures much of our vision, we look beyond it, above it. The mountain holds and supports the centerpiece of our vision. We see LORD’s house, the LORD’s dwelling place with us. It captures our eyes.
And like droves of others, our feet move in the direction of our vision with great excitement. Along with a company more diverse than we can comprehend - nations of people - we stream together like a river. Only this river moves upward. It flows up the mountain toward the house where we are placing our hopes.
And we are placing our hopes there. We long for teaching, instruction. We yearn to know where to place our steps - where and how to stream once we leave this place so that we may be people who walk in the LORD’s paths.
And what does that look like? What are we invited to see? Like Isaiah, we’re called to revision actions that are truly hopeful, so different from the world we often inhabit. Swords? No more! Take your swords, your symbols of violence, war, and power and beat them down. Allow them to be transformed, molded into plowshares for building, for growing! And spears? No more! Take your spears, your weapons, your tools of death and beat them down into pruning hooks for cultivation, for possibility!
This is a vision we long for. This is a vision we would love to see enacted right here in our present reality. What if the nations no longer practiced war? What if we - we who live in the nations of the world - were so distanced from war that we began to forget what it even was? Isaiah gives us such a vision.
But this vision seems foreign to us, doesn't it? It seems too distant from our present experience. Unlike many around the world, we don't live in a town, a state, or even a nation that would be considered a war zone. But the mad warring of our world affects us too. Even in this very moment as we consider Isaiah's vision, our nation is caught up in two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Along with other allies, our nation has soldiers there, some of whom are our sons and daughters, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. And as we go to our nation's airports, we are thrust into a debate over the intrusiveness of new forms of security efforts, and no matter what side of the debate we find ourselves on, we are reminded that terrorist cells are planning attacks against American civilians.
And just this week, contentions arose and millions were on edge as North Korea and South Korea broke into armed conflict. It's frightening, and our congregation remains in prayer for many of us who have relatives on both sides of the Korean border. We're affected by all of these conflicts, directly or indirectly. All of these conflicts are quite the opposite of plowshares and pruning hooks, aren't they?
And yet this vision remains, coming out of the context of Isaiah's experience, a context thousands of years before our own, from a context across the globe, one that seems so different from our own. But is it? The nuanced answer, of course, is yes, but Isaiah also knew of war and conflicts. In fact, he knew them more intensely than most of us do. Isaiah's context was one that included regular fears that military upheaval could be right around the corner any day. Can you imagine living in that kind of fear and uncertainty? National powers were continually seeking empire status. It wouldn't be long before Assyria would rail against Northern Israel taking its people captive. And about 150 years later, Babylon would carry the people of Judah, southern Israel, away as captives - the very people Isaiah is addressing. So Isaiah of knew war and rumors of war in ways even more threatening than we have likely experienced.
And yet Isaiah is bold to proclaim this vision right in the midst of a warring context. It is bold isn't it? Perhaps upholding a vision such as this one seems foolish - at best, laughable. Much of the rest of the book of Isaiah goes onto be very frank and open about war and conflict. Perhaps we can learn something as this passage gives such a beautiful vision right at the beginning of this great work of prophesy.
Our visions matter, don't they? Our images, our visible hopes, they matter, don't they? They certainly affect how we live in our present - how we see the world, and how we're willing to shape the very world we live in. And this passage seems to uplift that truth, doesn't it? I love the last words of invitation in this passage. Isaiah doesn't give us a pie in the sky vision only to crush our hopes with reality. He invites us to live into the reality of the very vision we have experienced: O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
Come, let us walk in the light of the LORD! Come, let us put our feet - right now! - in the direction of the revealed visions of God! Come, let us make this vision a self-fulfilled prophesy! Take your swords, take your spears! Go ahead! Take your resentments, your stereotypes, your harsh words, your bitterness, your manipulation - all the weapons you can and do muster - and take the sacred risk of bringing them to the healing power of the Holy Spirit that they may be transformed into the very vehicles that build and heal this world. Come, let us - all of us, right now - walk in the light of the LORD!
Often the images and visions we carry become the lens through which we see the world around us - the lens through which we name what's beautiful and what's possible. I know of a man who works in a private school for gifted children in Dallas, Texas. Young students take tests to be admitted into the school, demonstrating their intelligence, creativity, and aptitude for learning. As a new school year was about to begin, a five year old came to take ones of these tests. The test has a particular exercise on it called the Incomplete Man.*
The Incomplete Man has a picture of a human body, and some of the parts are missing. The child is told to fill in the missing parts, and this exercise is meant to test fine motor skills used in drawing and basic understandings of symmetry. The five year old child who took this test was extremely bright and engaged the work with a lot of energy and creativity. He drew ears and filled in a hand here. Some toes there. He drew a face. And soon, he appeared to be finished.
Only there was one obvious error at least as the testing teacher could see it. The child had taken great care to fill all the missing parts in - to finish the Incomplete Man, but there was one obvious omission. The child didn't draw eyes. The teacher assumed that he had simply gotten ahead of himself because he had done the rest of the exercise so well. She said, "Are you sure that the man is complete?" The child nodded. "Is everything filled in? On the face?" Again, the child seemed confident. After prodding him a bit, the teacher decided to let the exercise go and move on to the next part of the test.
It wasn't until later that this teacher saw the five year old boy with his father, and that made it all make sense. The boy's father was blind. This son had drawn what he believed to be a complete man, and he was right, even if he didn't follow the exact expectations of test. The boy had an understanding - a vision, a way of viewing the world - that taught him to define completeness in ways that affected his own actions, his lens for living and loving.
And that raises some questions for us at Pasadena Presbyterian Church. How are we being invited to vision differently, to provide an alternative vision of what it means to live and work in this world? What do we need to do, as individuals and as a church community to become people of plowshares and pruning hooks?
Maybe it is about bringing those weapons, those harsh words, and those resentments to God so that they and that we may be transformed. Maybe it is about entering this season of Advent, looking to view the Kingdom of God breaking into this world, to let it capture our vision that we might live in the very direction of those visions. Maybe it is about viewing a person or a group of persons differently. As the world deems them incomplete and insufficient - too poor, too sick, too disabled, too sad; not beautiful enough, not smart enough, not brave enough, not "in" enough, not "us"-enough - we can be bold in the spirit of Advent to see them differently - and perhaps to see ourselves differently - as the children of God we all are.
And so what are we waiting for? God is breaking into this world as God did in the incarnation of a holy child in our midst so long ago - God is breaking in even now! Open your eyes. See the Word. See the vision of God's love around you. And turn and live in that direction.
O House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
-Renee Roederer
*I first heard this story from Ben Johnston-Krase, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Racine, WI. His friend runs the school from which this story comes.
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