Adult Object Lesson: Looking Ahead to Advent A-1
Swords Into Plowshares
Anything Can Be a Weapon
Anything Can Be an Instrument of Peace
Advent is a great season for focusing on the Old Testament.
This year, Lectionary Year A, each Advent Sunday focuses on the prophet Isaiah.
This is the first of four object lessons based on the Isaiah Readings for Lectionary Year A.
Isaiah understood that adults understand object lessons!
The first lesson is the well-known “swords into plowshares” text.
Isaiah 2:1-5
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 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. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Your object can be any or several simple garden tools: a hoe is good. It is used to whack weeds so that good plants can grow.
Or it can be a peanut butter sandwich! (Read on!)
My son went to Quaker school where any reference to weaponry was strongly discouraged. This was a challenge for teachers working with young boys who wanted to dress up as superheroes at Halloween.
What’s a superhero without a weapon?
My son had two kindergarten teachers: a zealous young gal in her first years of teaching and a seasoned teacher in her last year of teaching before retiring. While the young teacher fervently and repeatedly discouraged five-year-old boys from thinking about weapons, the older teacher sighed. “They are boys. They will make weapons out of a peanut butter sandwich!”
Boys, men, adults of any gender . . . . we all have ways of manufacturing weapons.
Talk about how the hoe is tool of peace. Its purpose is to rid the garden of nutrient-sapping weeds so that life-sustaining plants can grow. Still, even the garden hoe can be a weapon. I was chopping away at weeds one summer day when I realized I had chopped a garter snake in two!
The difference between a sword and a plowshare is often in how we look at the world. That’s Isaiah’s mission in today’s passage—to change our point of view.
Words can be weapons. “It takes a thousand ‘attaboys’ to erase one ‘You idiot!’” Doctor Phil regularly tells his audience. Yet the “You idiot” slips out so much more easily.
Money is a favorite weapon. “Do as I say or you will lose my support!” Children learn this early when their parents withhold allowance! Adults often weigh it every day at work and even in church!
You want support? You listen and you listen good!
Rules, meant to keep order, can be used to force will and submission. Words and rules are actually favorite “weapons” of the Church through the ages and even today. You want an upper hand, keep that constitution within reach! (American nuns, get in line or face sanctions!)
Love can be a weapon, too. We are approaching the celebration of love coming from heaven to our doorstep! Yet it, in our hands, it often becomes a weapon.
Just as almost anything can be a weapon, anything can be a plowshare.
The gun in the hands of a hunter can feed the family. The knife can divide fruits and vegetables so that more people can share in God’s bounty.
The challenge of this passage is not so much to address physical tools but to change our mindset— to begin to see our possessions and talents as instruments of peace rather than weapons of war.
A little baby is coming. He will be an instrument of peace even when we are tempted to use Him to fuel our warlike ways!
This Advent: Watch our words. Watch how we use our power and influence. Put love to work. Look at our possessions as tools to spread the goodness of God’s creation.
Turn all those peanut butter sandwich weapons back into sandwiches.
(Why didn’t Isaiah think of that!)