"swords to plowshares"

Dr. George R. Sinclair, Jr.
Pastor

December 2, 2007

              Imagine a mountain, a mountain higher than the highest mountain.  You are standing at a distance. And from your lofty perch you see thousands and thousands, tens of thousands, a parade of nations not unlike the opening of the Olympic Games.  Imagine a parade like that—flags flying from every nation—and they’re all going up the mountain. They’re going up to God’s house where God will teach them to walk in God’s paths. This is the word you see, this is the word you hear God speaking about the people you see: “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.”

That’s what Isaiah saw.  Can you see it? Can you see every nation under heaven climbing the mountain called Peace? 

I want to say to Isaiah, “Well, yes, Isaiah. It is such a nice vision. But it will never happen.  Who are you kidding—swords to plowshares, spears to pruning hooks—and if bullfrogs had wings they too could fly.”

When I returned from vacation and saw the Isaiah text I think I actually groaned out loud, “Give me anything but Isaiah. Please Lord, let me talk about sweet baby Jesus, Christmas Jesus, the holy family, angels heard on high—anything but Isaiah.  I don’t want to talk about war.  People are tired of hearing about the War.  And people are divided about the War. They are choosing up sides, pointing fingers.  Some say you’re either for the war or against it.  And if against it you’re not a good American. Lord, I don’t want to talk about war, give me some other word this week, anything but ‘nation shall not lift up sword against nation.’  Folks don’t want to hear that.  It’s too hard. Give me another word.” 

That’s what I prayed when I saw Isaiah. But the Lord wouldn’t leave me. The Lord said to me, “Preach my Word.” 

While away, actually the last couple of days on vacation, I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Toward the end of Stowe’s book and just before Simon Legree flogs Uncle Tom to death behind his moldering plantation house, Stowe makes this observation, “What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

“What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”  Stowe was talking about the “blood and cruelty” of slavery, but she could have been talking about war.  We’ve got nerve enough to declare war and to fight war and to even strike up brass bands to celebrate war, but we don’t want to hear about war’s causalities.  We don’t want to see collateral damage, flag-draped coffins. We’d rather not know. We’d rather not hear.  

I suspect that’s also why we’ve hired companies like Blackwater to do our fighting.  We’ve funded a 20,000 man private army.  Can you imagine that during WWII?  I don’t think the “Greatest Generation” would have stood for that.  Whatever happened to citizen soldiers? “What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”  Stowe was right.  There are things we don’t want to hear.

When I was nine years old, my father bought me a pellet rifle. I already had a BB gun and had become proficient in plinking soup cans.  Why he bought me a pellet gun, I don’t know.  But I remember going out back the day he bought it.  We had a big oak in our back yard; lots of squirrels lived in that tree.  I remember it was a Friday afternoon because we were going to a high school football game that night.  Before the game I went down by the creek by the big oak to try out my new gun.  I took aim at a squirrel a few yards away. It was sitting on a low dogwood branch near the ground.  I remember being surprised that I hit it.  And I remember even more going over to pick it up. It was warm.

I don’t know why I didn’t expect the squirrel to be warm, but it was warm just like our old cat, Kizzy, was warm.  And I could feel its heart beating and I could see the hole and the blood where I had shot it.  And I remember when its heart stopped beating I felt something go out of me.  So I hid the squirrel under some leaves and hoped no one saw.  “What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

I don’t want to hear about the War, do you?  I don’t want to hear about the 3,900 U.S. service men and women who’ve given their lives or the 28,000 who’ve been wounded.  Can you imagine going to 4,000 funerals and handing over 4,000 American flags?  I don’t want to hear about all of that.  I don’t want to see the sorrowful faces of the little kids left behind, bereaved mothers and fathers, twenty-five year old brides and bridegrooms.  I don’t want to hear about the men and women who’ve lost their arms, their eyes or those with scars no one can see.  I don’t want to hear about any of that. And I sure don’t want to hear about Iraqis. 

There’s disagreement about how many of them have died.  Some say as many as one million.  Our own government says 100,000.  That’s surely better than a million, but 100,000 is a big number, especially in a country of only 27 million. 100,000 represents just under one-half of one percent of the total population of Iraq. One-half of one percent doesn’t sound like much, but imagine if one-half of one percent of our country died in war. We’re talking 1.5 million deaths.  Can you imagine 1.5 million war dead?  We lost 400,000 in the Second World War.  Proportionately, the Iraqis have lost almost four times that and likely a multiple several times higher.  “What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.”

 I don’t want to hear about the war in Iraq.  And on this first Sunday in Advent when we’re supposed to be singing about “peace” on earth, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about Iraq.  But if we’re ever going to have peace, we’ve first got to “hear” about what we have done. 

You know that first story about killing in the Bible, the one about Cain and Abel.  When Cain kills his brother the Lord asks him, “Where’s your brother?” 

And Cain says, “I don’t know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

And the Lord says, “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.” 

Cain didn’t want to know about his dead brother. Cain didn’t want to hear about what he had “nerve to do.” But the Lord heard.  The Lord had nerve. The Lord heard Cain’s cry. And the Lord wanted to know, why? 

How can we get the nerve to hear our brother’s cry?  I want God to teach me. I want to walk in God’s paths. I want to climb peaceful Mt. Zion, but I don’t know how. I’ve got too much baggage and the mountain is high.  I’m so weighed down and I’m guessing we’re all weighed down. 

We’ve grown accustomed to baggage of war. In the past 100 years, 100 million people have died fighting wars.  We’ve come to expect war.  War is routine. The last one hundred years rank among the bloodiest if not the bloodiest in all of human history. We’re no longer shocked by war—particularly wars with “smart” bombs and “precision” bombing which we think make war clean and safe. We’re numbed by war. We expect it. It’s the way of the world.

And not only that, we’ve lived under the shadow of nuclear annihilation for a generation now.   Of course we tell ourselves—“No one’s foolish enough to actually use those weapons. Nuclear war is unthinkable. No one’s crazy enough to fire off an atomic bomb.”  But we don’t know that and we’re sure worried about the nuclear family growing larger. If it’s not a problem, why are we so worried? 

How are we going to climb the Peaceful Mountain?  How are we ever going to get in to God’s school?  You see, I’m very practical. I’m realistic.  People are capable of great and foolish evil. You’ve got to be realistic about evil.  Paul was.  Paul recognized that evil can’t go unopposed.  “Rulers,” he said, “are not a terror to good conduct but to bad . . .” Rulers, Paul says, are “God’s servants” and exist because they have been “instituted by God.”  Do good, Paul says, and you will be approved by them. “But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain.” 

There it is. Paul says it as plain as day.  Rulers have God’s authority to use the sword. And because they rule by God’s authority, God must, at least in some instances, approve of the use of the sword.

Had Paul not heard?  Had Paul not been to the mountaintop?  Had he not gone up Zion and learned God’s ways?  Why would Paul allow for the use of the sword?  Had he not read Isaiah? 

Maybe he had and maybe Paul thought Isaiah was talking about some far off, distant day at the end of time, that Isaiah’s vision of swords to plowshares was really about the end of history and that we can’t really expect governments to act peacefully within history.  “It’s impractical. It’s unrealistic.  The real world requires real power. Swords will only be beaten into plowshares at the end of history, not now. It’s too soon to expect peace now.  We can’t hear peace now. We must wait.”  Did Paul think that? Is that how Paul justified the use of the sword?

I’m wondering how to climb the Lord’s mountain.  If Paul couldn’t climb it, I’m pretty sure I can’t pass the entrance exam—I’ve got blood on my hands. I’ve consented to war. And by virtue of our citizenship we’ve all consented to war.  We are responsible for 100,000 deaths. How do you get in the Lord’s school with blood on your hands? 

The Bible says Isaiah “saw” the “word” of the Lord.  Isaiah “saw” a day that was coming.  Isaiah had a vision.  

We’ve been working on renovations to Baytreat for about six months.  And we’re almost finished. We thought we’d be finished months ago, but it’s an old house and it’s taken longer than any of us thought not that we didn’t start out with a plan.  We did. We hired an architect and Nick gave us a picture of what Baytreat would look like when it was finished.  Nick’s plan helped us see ahead of time and while we’ve made some adjustments because we’ve run into some things we didn’t expect—like a cistern under the house and four septic—we’ve pretty much followed the plan Nick gave us and we’re about to see it completed. My point is this, without a vision we would still be tearing down walls and arguing about where to put new ones. 

You know what the Bible says about vision—people perish without vision.  We have a vision—God will one day judge the earth. And when God judges the earth, people “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.” 

That’s not just any old vision. That’s not George’s vision. That’s not a party platform or political philosophy—that’s God’s vision for the world.  That’s how God says things are going to play out. And if we say we want to “walk in God’s paths,” then we’ve got to get right with God’s vision.  We’ve seen ahead of time, so by faith we’re supposed to act ahead of time. By faith, we’re supposed to beat our swords to plowshares and our spears to pruning hooks.

I don’t know how you do that unless you trust God more than you trust the world.  Experience suggests that’s a hard lesson learned. But I’m counting on a miracle. I’m counting on God’s Word.  I want God to give us the nerve to hear about what we have done, because if we’ve got nerve hear that, there’s hope that God can wash the blood off our hands. 

I’m praying for the nerve to hear, because if we have nerve to hear what we’ve done, we might take a small step up the mountain we’re all going to one day climb.  And we will climb that mountain because God keeps his word. All nations are going to climb the Peaceful Mountain. And the Lord will teach us all his ways and we will walk in his paths. And in that day “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”  Amen.