On the Anvil--December 4, 2019

On the Anvil--December 4, 2019

"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." [Isaiah 2:2-4]

You'd think peace would be the easy thing, and war the difficult one.

You'd think that quiet and calm for our souls would be an easy sell, and that hatred and strife would be difficult to stir up.

But it appears we are ornery critters, we humans, and once we have given ourselves to the ways of fear... and greed... and violence to get our way, we have a lot of unlearning to do in order to learn peace.

And, do you see it?  That's just what the prophet imagines here.  Peace isn't just a default setting that happens when we are all tired out from fighting.  Peace--at least genuine peace that is always entwined with justice--is about learning and practicing different ways of living with one another.  Peace is about what happens when we are brave enough to say, "I was wrong," rather than dig our heels in about something truly indefensible because we are embarrassed to admit our mistakes.  Peace is about what happens when I am no longer threatened by your success, because I do not see all of life as a zero-sum game where your good fortune is a loss to me.  Peace is about what happens when I am more committed to everybody being able to eat and feed their kids than I am about imagining some "god-given right" to hoard and consume without end.  Peace is about what happens when I am courageous enough to forgive rather than set off a cycle of revenge... and about what happens when I am courageous enough to ask for forgiveness rather than ruin a relationship.  Peace is about what happens when I let God's ways of justice and mercy become more important to me than me getting "my way" or putting "me and my group first."

Peace requires, in a sense, then, death and resurrection--a death to an old way of doing things, and the resurrection that leads me to live in this world differently.  Same me, and yet, I really become a whole new kind of creation--one that is no longer hunched over with hatred and bound up with fear.  Peace requires a sort of re-forging of my character, my attitudes, my skills, and my strengths--to use those same gifts, but with a new shape, a new form, and for a purpose that brings life rather than death.

That's part of what makes the image of swords being beaten into plowshares, and of spears into pruning hooks, such a powerful notion for me.  It's a sort of resurrection in and of itself, too.  To take the already cast forms of weaponry and to hammer them, to melt them, to re-forge them anew into something new and life-giving, well that is something of a resurrection, too, isn't it?  The vision of the prophet is not just of diplomatic treaties on pieces of paper, which could be backed out of, or ripped up, on the whim of the next king, but of an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new way of life. Even the swords get melted down to become farm tools. Even the spears become gardening equipment.  The old metal is still usable, but its old form is put to death, so to speak, so that a new form can be made from its substance.  

When we talk about our hope in the God who brings us to life, this is a part of the picture.  The Christian hope is not simply that God will raise up my same old molecules--and my same old ornery, greedy, and often fearful temperament with it--and just plop me down on my two feet alive again in order for me to be the same jerk I have been for so long in this life.  God has it in mind to make me a new creation--to use my sharp edges in new ways, ways that give life rather than destroy it, to take the substance of me and give it new form.  God is re-forging all of us--and it begins even now, even in this day, this year, this life.  And for whatever rough edges yet need to be polished or sanded or hammered when I breathe my last, God reserves the right to raise me up in resurrection fully transformed, too.

It is a lifelong thing, this unlearning of the old ways of death, and the new learning of God's ways that bring life.  It is a matter, not just of praying a prayer once or having a mystical experience, but of day by day choosing to let go of the ways of hatred and fear and greed, of "my way" and of "me and my group first," and instead to learn new ways of living together where kindness and justice make it possible for all of us to eat.

And for that transformation, it will take God's willingness not just to re-forge weapons into tools, but to re-forge us from being the wielder of weapons to being the users of the tools.  It will mean God re-forges my heart like is a little resurrection connected to God's grand resurrection of all things.  

Dare we invite God to work such resurrection on these ornery hearts of ours?  Dare we let God re-forge our blades and gun-barrels?  Dare we let God begin it now, and put us on the anvil today?

Lord God, take this rusty iron heart with all its sharp edges and make something new of me that will be useful in your peaceable kingdom.