Swords into Food

Swords into Food

A Sermon for Advent I

Holy Cross Monastery
West Park, NY
December 1, 2013

St. Benedict, in his Rule for monks, is famous for telling us that the life of a monk should be a perpetual Lent. I would like to hold out to you the possibility that if Advent had been a fully developed liturgical season at the time that Benedict wrote his Rule, he might have taught us that the life of a monk should be a perpetual Advent.

And here's why: Advent is that season in which we are called to slow down and quiet ourselves in order to awaken ourselves to a new way of life, a new and renewed hope in the God of hope, the God with us. This is, I think, what monastics and those who are inspired by monastic spirituality do. They wait, they watch, they hope. Most of all, they hope.

All of this waiting, watching and hoping is actually quite counter-cultural which, again, a way of being that is, I believe, the mark of a healthy monastic community. Quiet down in December? Yes. Wait, when I've got a million things to do before the holidays? Yes. Believe that in the days to come there will be peace on earth? Yes. Salvation is nearer now more than ever? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Believing those things is counter-cultural and to be a Christian, in our country at this current moment in history, demands of us, that we be counter-cultural. So here, at the beginning of this blessed season, let us make a commitment to living the life of a perpetual Advent. As St. Paul calls to us from so many years ago, this Advent, let us wake from our sleep; and as Jesus calls to us once awake, we must keep awake. I believe these calls are invitations to waken ourselves to the hope that Isaiah promises in the days to come. And that's what I'd like to talk to you about this morning - that prophesy/hope that Isaiah made in our first reading, one of the most famous of the season of Advent.

In particular, I'd like us to focus on what is perhaps the most well-known verse in the prophesy, verse 4, part of which reads:

...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.

When I have asked people what they think about this particular verse, I have usually gotten one of three responses. One response is a kind of “that would be nice, but not going to happen in our life times”; another is “yes, but what about the Muslims? Or the Soviets? Or whomever the perceived enemy was at the moment. But the most common response I have heard over the years, and the most dangerous and least hope-filled is the cynical response. The one in which the person says: “Isaiah is a pipe-dream, a naïve and silly approach to world affairs.” This kind of cynicism leads to some realities on the ground that make for an especially un-Advent like approach to our lives.

Because that kind of cynicism is exactly the kind of cynicism that the hope of Isaiah, the hope of Advent, the hope of Christ, should make us reject out of hand. That cynicism is about darkness. And Advent is nothing, if not about light. The light of hope, the light of Christ having come among us, the light of Christ coming again, the light of Christ being right here, right now.

And each week, as we light one more candle on the Advent wreath, slowly, but surely, building the light – it is my prayer, my hope, my expectation, that we will learn what it means to beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. That is what it means, I think, to wake up and to stay awake. It is to learn how to accept the invitation from Christ, to be a partner in the building of Christ's light, Christ's reign.

And so what does Isaiah's poetic language mean in real life? Well, to understand that, I think we must start with with text. Isaiah was calling to the people to beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks not for poetry's sake, but for the sake of food. Plain and simple.

The constant preparation for war was extremely expensive as it is today. Swords and spears were among the most expensive weapons of war at the time and the money that was raised in order to make these weapons came directly from the people and out of their food budgets. The people were starving to death so that enough weapons of war could be made to defend them from being killed by the enemy. This kind of thinking is what passes for being “realistic” and as a “sophisticated” understanding of world politics. It is nonsense.

Isaiah knew that a sword could be reconfigured into a plowshare by a blacksmith. This is actually something that could be done by any ordinary blacksmith. A plowshare is that part of a plow that is sharpened and actually digs the soil in order to create a space where seeds can be sown. Spears could easily be changed by a blacksmith into pruning hooks, which could then be used to prune fruit and nut trees which would provide healthier trees, which would provide more food. Isaiah knew that a hungry people are a desperate people. Feed people, grow peace.

So a less poetic, but perhaps more direct way to relay Isaiah's real meaning might be: “they shall beat their swords and spears into food.” Food that nourishes, food that gives life, food that allows us to continue to build the light. Food for peace. And remember, this wasn't one-sided. Isaiah says that the nations, plural, will be part of this movement.

One other note about the text. The phrase at the beginning of our reading “in the days to come” is not referring to some magical, mystical, time in the future when the Messiah brings all this great stuff about. Rather “in the days to come” refers to real time, something that will happen in the course of human history, brought about by the peoples of the earth who seek God.

And that got me thinking. And so, to continue my own awakening, I did a little research in the preparation of this sermon. I looked into hunger in our world today. I'd like to do a little visual experiment with you today {count off in sixes, the sixth person raises their hand and keep it in the air}.

Now, please look all around the church. Every person who has their hand in the air represents a hungry person in the United States. One in six persons in the United States, the United States...is hungry.¹ They do not have enough food to feed themselves or their families. These people are not only in the poorest neighborhoods in some forgotten inner city, though they are there. They are also in nice neighborhoods in glamorous cities, they are in suburbs, they are in rural areas, they are, perhaps, right in this church. They are us – and we are hungry. They are us, but we are at war. Just last year, in 2012, that meant that 49,000,000 people in the United States, 49,000,000 of our fellow citizens were hungry.²

In Afghanistan, the World Food Program says the number of hungry is approximately 7,400,000 people who are classified as starving, and another 8,500,000 people who are classified as facing borderline starvation.³ This is out of a population of 31,000,000 people.

Around the world, in the latest figures we have which date back to 2010, the number of hungry is 870,000,000 people⁴ I know these are a lot of numbers, and I'm not really a numbers guy, but I must wake up. We must wake up. Jesus makes it very clear – wake up.

Please be patient with me, just one more set of numbers: Since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, the United States has spent, as of 5:02 this morning, 677,723,625,603 dollars.⁵ The website for National Priorities keeps a running ticker as to how many dollars we are spending on this war. It moves so fast, that it is difficult to capture any particular dollar amount, but there it is, as of 5:02 AM – over 677 Billion dollars.

In those same twelve years, we have spent a little more than 24 Billion dollars on food aid for the entire planet. So, 677 Billion dollars for war in Afghanistan alone, and 24 Billion dollars for food all over the world. That is a lot of swords and spears, and not much food.

Now what would it look like if we took a percentage of that money – let's say even just 10% of it – over 67 Billion dollars – and spent some of it on emergency food relief and most of it on teaching people how to grow their own food, how to deal with particular realities like droughts and floods over the long term, and how to build infrastructures to make local agricultural efforts more effective. What would that look like? It would look like we were building the light of the Advent wreath. What if we used 50% - 339 Billion dollars? The light would be shining so brightly we need cover our eyes and turn away. Peace would be breaking out all over the dinner tables of the world.

Yes, Isaiah, and Paul, and Jesus are all about hope. And so am I – at least on my best days. So here's my hope for myself, my community, and all of you. 

My hope is that:

In the days to come

the treasury of our country

will be used to feed our own people;

to beat our drones into food for Afghanistan,

and our nuclear submarines into food for North Korea.

In the days to come,

the relative wealth of our monastery

will be used to feed the people

to turn our treasure into food for Newburgh, Highland, West Park;

and to continue to turn our bread into Eucharist for the spiritually hungry.

If you came to the monastery, whether as a guest or as a monk to escape the world, you came to the wrong place. The monastery and monastic spirituality is not an escape from the world, it is a gateway to the world. These beautiful sisters and brothers that God has given to us – sisters and brothers in this church, back home, in Afghanistan, in North Korea, El Salvador and all around the world, are sisters and brothers to be fed and to feed us. They are not to be targets of our swords or spears, our drones or nuclear weapons.

So, in these Advent days to come, I invite you to hope and hope and hope. To watch and to wait by learning what it might mean for you to feed a hungry person, for your community to feed a hungry community, for our nation to feed another nation. In learning those things, we might just not have time to learn war anymore. Spend these next several weeks being quiet enough to learn what it means to build the light in these days that have come. AMEN.

1 www.feedamerica.org

2Ibid.

3www.wfp.org

4www.worldhunger.org

5www.nationalpriorities.org