Peace and Plowshares

By Fr. Jeff Locke

Twenty-six centuries ago, the prophet Isaiah wrote some of the most famous words in all the Hebrew Scriptures:

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 2:4)

You can still hear echoes of these ancient words across our world today. You see them inscribed on war memorials; hear them sprinkled into the speeches of political candidates; find them in the names of nonprofits committed to doing good. Isaiah’s vision has continued to resonate for over two and a half millennia, inspiring endeavors of peace and idealistic pursuits across the globe.

Why do we still use these words and feel a sense of longing at the sound of them? It’s at least, in part, because they picture a peace that feels unattainable. Especially these days. Three mass shootings robbed our nation of peace in the weeks immediately preceding Thanksgiving, leading to fourteen empty chairs at family dinner tables. As war in Ukraine continues, Russia’s attacks on infrastructure make millions vulnerable to the freezing temperatures of a Ukrainian winter. Discourse in our nation continues to grow in toxicity, forcing many to feel they have no alternative but to retreat into their own ideological tribe, making national unity and local community all the more unrealistic.

In a world in which everyone around you wields a sword or spear, in a world where everyone is a potential threat, a stranger not to be trusted, those things that make life meaningful—love, friendship, family, belonging—become increasingly implausible. The more isolated we become as a people, the more individualistic we are, the more alienated from our neighbors we grow to be—the less access we have to the best things in life. To many, things like love and friendship and family and belonging are already impossible. No wonder night managers at Virginia Walmarts, when they decide to end their lives, figure they may as well take a handful of their closest coworkers with them.

The peace Isaiah describes is so complete that no effort or energy can be spent on violence—the only channel left for our efforts in his vision is the pursuit of peace, of blessing and producing and multiplying life and goodness and joy.

In a world in which everyone around you wields a sword or spear—where everyone is a threat to your physical or psychological well-being—it isn’t safe to disarm yourself. It’s certainly not safe to do so, completely, permanently, irrevocably. But this is what Isaiah pictures. To take a hammer and beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, means to permanently eliminate your ability to fight back. You render yourself defenseless. You open yourself to the possibility of being hurt, harmed, hated or hung out to dry by those you depend on.

Picture the last time you felt you were in danger of being hurt, or even just misunderstood. Perhaps you felt you were being blamed for something unfairly; your words were taken out of context; you bore the brunt of your roommate’s or coworker’s or spouse’s bad mood. Or, perhaps something comes to mind that is far more serious than an everyday misunderstanding. You are hated, maligned, wrongfully accused.

How did you respond? Were you defensive? Did you go on the attack? Did you pull your sword or spear out and meet fire with fire, violence with violence, eye for eye and tooth for tooth?

The picture of peace in Isaiah 2 is one in which the possibility of self-defense is eliminated. It’s a commitment to peace so unrelenting that those who seek it burn their ships and leave themselves without the option of retaliation. Who would you need to become in order to lay down your arms, to destroy your defenses, to take that which you could use to defend yourself or cause others harm, and turn it into only that which can create, nurture, and cultivate?

That is what plowshares and pruning hooks do, after all. A plowshare was a blade farmers would attach to their plow to break up the soil when it was time to plant seeds. Pruning hooks would be used to trim and cut back plants so as to make them more fruitful, better able to produce. Plowshares and pruning hooks are farming tools, gardening tools, the sorts of things you use to make, to grow, to bear fruit, to ensure a harvest. The prophet contrasts that which destroys with that which builds up, that which kills with that which gives life. The peace he describes is so complete that no effort or energy can be spent on violence—the only channel left for our efforts in Isaiah’s vision is the pursuit of peace, of blessing and producing and multiplying life and goodness and joy.

What kind of people would we need to become in order to participate in that vision?

I can’t answer that question for each and every person. But I would suggest that in order to be part of Isaiah’s vision of peace, perhaps we would, at the very least, need to become the sort of people who celebrate Advent.

Jesus, emptying himself of power, beat his swords into plowshares and his spears into pruning hooks.

Advent is the first season in the Christian calendar; the first Sunday of Advent is our New Years Day! The word Advent means coming, arrival. It is a season of expectation, a time in which we empty ourselves in repentance and wait for the peace that the prophet describes.

Isaiah was waiting for that peace, longing for it. Listen to the longing in his voice:

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. (v.2-3)

Imagine it, Isaiah says. Israel at that time was a nation in decline, and by the end of Isaiah’s ministry he was predicting the invasion of a foreign superpower that would render his fellow countrymen slaves and exiles. But there’s a day coming, he says, when the nations of the world won’t come here for war, but for peace. They’ll gather here, in Jerusalem, in order to worship our God in his holy temple.

And on that day, when all the peoples of the earth come streaming here to learn the ways of the Lord, to be near to him and bask in the light of his glory, God himself “shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples” (v.4). And because God will sit on the throne as King, because he will reign and rule over all things, then there will be peace! Swords will become plowshares, spears pruning hooks, and no one will bother learning war anymore, because we will all walk in the light of the Lord.

Isaiah was waiting for the coming of the Lord himself who would sit on a throne and reign over all people in peace. His goodness and power and love would open a space on this earth where war and violence were implausible and unnecessary. God would reign over us in peace, and we could love our neighbors as ourselves and lay down our defenses in his gracious kingdom.

Isaiah was waiting for that kingdom to come. Christians can celebrate the arrival of that kingdom—even as we hope and long for its final coming in fullness—because the King has already arrived. He has gone up to Jerusalem and sat on his throne and the nations have streamed to him.

As he was preparing to sit on his throne and reign over us in peace, he told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn 14:27). He came as King to bring his peace and take away our fear, which sits at the root of violence and conflict. When Peter pulled out his sword to defend Jesus, he rebuked him, “Put away your sword! Don’t you know that I could ask my Father and have 12 legions of angels to defend me!?!” When interrogated by the imperial governor he told him, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over…. But my kingdom is not from the world” (Jn 18:36).

Jesus, emptying himself of power, beat his swords into plowshares and his spears into pruning hooks. He gave himself into the violent hands of his own creatures and laid down his life because he knew “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24).

Christ came into his kingdom and became Judge over all the nations when he was lifted up on his throne—when he was crucified on the cross. He became the Prince of Peace at Calvary so that we, the peoples from all over the world, could come to him, submit to him, and live under his kingdom with one another in peace.

Who do we need to become in order to open a space in this world in which war and violence, conflict and fighting, are implausible and unnecessary? We need to become the kind of people who live under King Jesus, who draw near to him in his first Advent, his first coming in which he died and rose again—and who patiently and longingly wait in hope for the second Advent, when he will fully and finally shine the light of his grace and peace upon us all. “O house of Jacob,” O church! “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

Jeff Locke is a California native and lives with his wife and four children in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is an Anglican priest and serves as the Rector of Eucharist Church in San Francisco.