We don’t suffer fools easily in this congregation. The majority of us pair their faith with a healthy sense of realism. When someone tells us, “The world is coming to an end!” Lutherans won’t pack up and abandon their lives. When someone proclaims that poverty is about to be eliminated if we make a few policy changes and work on it hard enough, folks in this church are skeptical. “It’s not that simple!” we argue. And if someone tells us that peace on earth, the proclamation of the angels in the night of the Nativity, is achievable, we roll our eyes: another fool, another naïve idealist. Let’s not waste our energies on utopian dreams! Peace is a big word! Sorry, candle of hope, you who are lit first in this holy season of advent, your presence in our sanctuary this morning just proves a point… This world is far from ideal and we need the hope you symbolize, we need it desperately, because we can’t stand some of the realities in the world out there! If we named them all, we would be here all morning!
Given that mindset, I can see that many of us hear this reading from the second chapter of Isaiah and immediately toss the message aside. We may even give this passage the cheekiest compliment of all, which is: “Such nice words!” The prophet, whose writings most of us know only from the few selective passages chosen in our lectionary, this man of God from the 6th century BC comes across as a dreamer; he is known for his visions of a pacified world. Supreme among them ranks this beautiful prophesy of nations beating their swords into ploughshares, a wonderful image that hasn’t lost its edge. It sure sounds catchier than turning nukes into energy plants or B52 bombers into passenger planes. Yet, many of us roll our eyes, knowing that in America today we can’t even agree to get the deadliest assault weapons off the street, let alone forging them into peaceful utilitarian tools.
For those of you who start to get nervous right now because the topic I just alluded to is one of those perennial political dividers with passionate believers on either side, and we don’t talk about politics at the Thanksgiving table or in church… let me assure you… what Isaiah envisions here is something beyond the pale of politics. First of all, you will agree, Isaiah’s seminal words are much more beautiful than anything that comes out of Harrisburg or Washington D.C! O.k., that’s not very difficult! But also, this man of God speaks to our souls. ”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.’” The prophet is not trying to change anybody’s mind – not the minds of the hawkish Israelites of his day, nor the minds of those who feel strongly about defense in our days. What the prophet envisions is an act of peacemaking that happens voluntarily, out of free will, not through a government recall of weapons. He invites people to envision a world in which people happily want to do the right thing, including giving up their lethal weapons to none other than God, offering cold iron to be transformed into something that feeds and sustains people. Jesus would have called that – THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
The realists among us will say, “O.K. preacher, that’s wishful thinking!” As far as we know several countries are on the verge of turning uranium into nuclear weapons as we speak. But this vision from Isaiah 2 is not to be understood as an actual event; it will always remain a dream, an important dream nevertheless; it can shape humanity for the better. If we allow that dream to live in us, regardless of the realities outside, regardless of what our minds say is the best course of action, it will inform our thoughts, words and deeds, and even our political choices in good ways. Most of all it will make for good people. The candle of hope that burns in our sanctuary this morning begs us to keep the dream of peace alive! But how can the dream actually influence reality? Maybe that is best understood in a story…
Some 78 years ago, it seemed that the dream of peace was dead. On a December Sunday in 1941, Oregon native staff sergeant Jacob De Shazer was peeling potatoes when he heard news of an attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. The harbor was ablaze and thousands of US servicemen were dying on that day. He became enraged, shouting: “The Japs are going to have to pay for this!”
Fueled by his hatred for the Japanese, he volunteered for a bombing mission in Japan. Returning from a successful campaign, the sergeant ran out of gas in occupied China and was captured by the enemy. The next 40 months of his life he barely survived as a Prisoner of War, 34 of those in solitary confinement. He saw comrades die of starvation. He was treated harshly. His hatred and distain for the Japanese deepened. At some point he hungered for spiritual food and asked his captors for a Bible, in a country with less than 1% Christians at the time. Oddly enough, after several months of pleading, his guards found him one.
I don’t know what the sergeant read during the three weeks he had the Bible before it was taken away again. Maybe he came across Isaiah 2 at some point. But I do know that he saw its messages as the reason for his survival and resolve to become a devout Christian. His conversion included learning a few words of Japanese and treating his captors with respect, which resulted in the guards reacting in a similar fashion. After his release, DeShazer entered Seattle Pacific College, and began studying to be a missionary. In 1948 he returned to Japan with his wife, Florence. His inner swords had turned into ploughshares. He wanted to make a difference.
It gets better than that and I know the realists among us will think it sounds too good to be true. One day during his time in Japan, Jacob Deshazer ran into Mitsuo Fuchida, the man who had led the 360 Japanese planes in the infamous attack on the morning of December 7, 1941. Fuchida was also the only one of 13 investigators of the Hiroshima catastrophe who had not died afterwards of radiation. Maybe for a reason. Because, in the course of his friendship with this former American pilot, Fuchida became a Christian. That was sometime in 1950’s and we can safely say that his inner swords too had been successfully turned into ploughshares.
I believe that peaceful minds and peaceful people, human beings who have internalized Isaiah’s dream, can be contagious in our world. If you are a so-called realist and you still doubt it, I beg you to go and watch Mr. Rogers, the movie about the famous children show host Fred Rogers. I saw it last week. I didn’t expect much – after all, I didn’t grow up with that show. But let me tell you, I was impressed by the way in which this master of feelings was able to deal with the darkest of emotions, allowing children and adults to talk about them, and heal them. Mr. Rogers, the real one and the one portrayed by Tom Hanks, turned swords into ploughshares all the time. Did he not make the world a better place? Did he not keep the candle of hope alive? Did he not keep Isaiah’s dream in his soul? Let us have a little bit of faith in a world that is often harsh and difficult. Jesus said we don’t need much of it, just enough to believe that this place can be better. It’s advent, and the candle of hope approves this message. Amen.