Dream God’s Dream

Isaiah 2:1-5

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. ²In 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. ³Many 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. ⁴He 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. ⁵

The Advent photo is a sixteen foot plow share. What makes this piece unique is that it was crafted from over three thousand hand guns collected by and surrendered to the police in Washington DC over a two year period.

It was unveiled on September 19^th 1997, and for twelve years stood in the middle of Judiciary Square in Washington.  It is not currently on display.

It is the creative work of Esther Augsberger (a sculptor from Eastern Mennonite University) and her son Michael. It is a powerful and stunning witness to one family’s commitment to peace and a reminder that this is both the promise and the dream for our world. 

The base of the sculpture quotes Isaiah, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

In this first week of Advent the ancient words of the prophets bring both challenge and hope. They give voice to what we yearn for. They tell us peace is the promise; peace is the work; peace is the way.

The way is hidden in plain sight in the words of the prophet Isaiah.  We are so familiar with the swords into plowshares verses that what comes before can slide right by unnoticed.

As we look at the text it’s important to remember there is a linear order to things.  Peace is the outcome, the end result.  There are some important things that come before.

Peace is an uphill journey.  Verse two suggests a wonderfully subversive image:  God’s people, all nations will stream uphill. Stream is a verb that usually refers to water. And water flows downhill, because gravity is the law.  But God’s people will stream uphill against the flow. 

Peace is an uphill journey a counter cultural commitment to be the people of God when it would be easier to be just about anything else. 

In Isaiah’s time the mountains of nationalism and economic security were higher than the mountain of faith.  Isaiah pointed it out for them. He exposed their commitments and actions for what they were–idolatry pure and simple. The message is relevant for us today.

Now you know why prophets were not welcome in their own lands, truth be told they weren’t welcome any place else either.  Isaiah pointed his finger at his own kin and brought a word from God that named their errant commitments as well as the violence within them that kept them from peace.  He looked at his friends and family and said there is no peace, because you have not streamed up the mountain to learn the things that make for peace. 

The uphill journey often begins alone. The prophetic task is often the voice of one: one person who speaks truth to power; one person who journeys uphill again and again.  Isaiah was not sitting around waiting for peace to drop out of heaven. He was streaming up the mountain toward it. Whether or not anyone followed him was not the point. The journey was his to make; the truth burned within him and he was faithful to the task. 

We are so often caught in powerlessness, thinking that our little actions will not make a difference, and thinking or perhaps fearing either irrelevance or failure. What is ours to do we do not do.  Isaiah’s witness is to the power of one. 

Peace is an uphill journey that we choose to make, or not make, every day.  A deep commitment to peace means we live out individually what is needed collectively. It’s not about whether or not we change the world, that’s up to God. But this much we know, and Thich Nat Hahn said it best:  “there is not a way to peace, peace is the way.”

It begins with what we do or fail to do every day.  As people of faith we look first at our own lives and clean up what is ours to clean up.  We are impacted by the violence that is as much a part of our world as the air we breathe. We think that we are unaffected by it, and that is the first illusion that needs to go.

There is violence in our language. We think in terms of win or lose. We need to be right, sometimes at the expense of relationship. We pass self-superior judgments on others. We resist the spiritual work of reconciliation.  

Dreaming God’s dream for the world is a daily discipline that needs silence and solitude. Such disciplines occasion the kind of insights that lead us and strengthen us for the uphill journey.

It is a discipline that also unravels our fears. Most of what sets us at odds with one another is fear: the fear of being wrong, the fear of one who is different, or the fear of what others will think if we associate with “that person”. 

The uphill journey that will finally beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks is a journey of personal transformation that is supported and held accountable in the life of community. The uphill journey does not ask if one person can really make a difference. It stands as a witness that leaving things undone is a resignation to despair.

The most important work for peace is the work that begins inside us: routing the violence from our language and looking the people we see every day straight in the eye and seeing them as God’s beloved. It sets us on the lifelong uphill journey to the things that make for peace. 

Faith, such as we have and such as we hope for, calls us to look at these things; because peace in the world depends on peace in the country, which depends on peace in the community, which depends on peace in the home, which depends on peace in the heart. Just because things have been the way they are for so long doesn’t mean it’s the way they are supposed to be.