“[The LORD] will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” (Micah 4:3)
When you look at the reality of humanity and history, it is hard to see how people can ever achieve lasting peace. There is no hope. Yet Micah portrays a hope rooted in the God of the Bible. It is only by his actions that wars will one day cease, that peace will come.
As recorded at St. Luke’s
Swords and Ploughshares
Colin Gale, 10 November 2024
War memorials come in many guises. At last year’s Remembrance Sunday service, I showed you a picture of the war memorial statue at Southend on Sea. This year I have a different war memorial to highlight, which was part of a post-war community-building project as well as being a war memorial.
It is an artwork titled ‘The Tree of Life’, which is part of the collections of the British Museum.1 It is sculpted entirely from decommissioned weapons which were given in return for bicycles, sewing machines and farm equipment following the end of the civil war in Mozambique in the 1990s. It was part of an art project titled ‘Swords into Ploughshares’. The Wikipedia entry for this phrase explains that the concept is of military weapons or technologies being converted for peaceful civilian applications. It’s not simply about the decommissioning of military technology, it’s about its re-purposing for peaceful ends. But who needs Wikipedia when we have this morning’s readings from the Old Testament?
I want to consider different aspects of these readings under three headings: firstly, ‘Swords into Ploughshares’; secondly, ‘Ploughshares into Swords’; and thirdly, ‘Swords into Ploughshares, forever’.
Swords into Ploughshares
Micah chapter 4 verses 2 and 3 read: “The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples, and shall settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more.”
So the vision is of people beating their spears into pruning hooks, as well as their swords into ploughshares – all the technology of human destruction being transformed into tools for agricultural labour and flourishing.
And tied up with agricultural flourishing, there will be human flourishing: “Everyone will sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one will make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4). This is a vision of the kind of peace, that existed prior to the division of the kingdom of Israel, returning to the land. In 1 Kings chapter 4 verse 25, it says that “during Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel, from Dan [to the north, near the border with Lebanon] to Beersheba [to the south, not far from Gaza], Judah and Israel lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree”. It is a strange and uncomfortable thing to be speaking of this 3000 year old vision in 2024, at a time when peace seems so far from these and other places.
And the vision includes a phrase which inspired the lyrics of African-American spiritual hymn ‘Down By the Riverside’.
‘Gunna lay down my burden, down by the riverside,
‘I ain’t gunna study war no more,
‘gunna lay down my sword and shield,
‘gunna shake hands with every man’,
and so on.
These words in turn helped to inspire the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War protests, in the United States of America. More broadly, this vision of Micah, many of the elements of which were shared by the prophet Isaiah, inspired the formation of the United Nations in the late 1940s, following the unprecedented loss of life associated with the Second World War. The words of the prophet, and a statue of a man beating a sword into a ploughshare, appear outside the UN headquarters in New York.2
This is a beautiful and an inspiring vision of the last days, when “the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains. “It will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it”, say the prophets Micah (4:1) and Isaiah (2:2). “Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths’.
But these particular words of the prophets were not written on the UN walls. With these words left out, all we are left with is a noble “human social program”.3 And a human social program, however noble it may be, leaves open the possibility, in fact the ever-present “demonic threat, of a return to war”4 following a period of peace. This is the reason for our second heading this morning …
Ploughshares into Swords
We know about this from history and from experience. Many conflicts are raging today, and they seem to be getting worse, not better. A few months ago, there were news reports of a three-day ceasefire in one of the war zones, to enable children to receive their vaccinations, their inoculation rounds, in safety. After that, the bombing started up again, threatening the lives of those very same children. Even on the radio news this morning, the first item was about which members of the Royal Family were going to attend the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, and the second item was about how many people had died overnight in war zones.
As well as knowing about this senseless, deadly cycle from history and experience, we know about it from the Scriptures, because alongside the reading from the prophet Micah this morning, I suppose you will remember the reading we heard from the prophet Joel, and his sobering vision of a return to war.
In Micah everyone lived under their own vine and fig tree in safety, but in Joel the sickle is swung, and the grapes are trampled, and these are the grapes of the wrath of God against the nations, “so great is their wickedness”, declares the LORD in Joel chapter 3, verse 13.
And prior to that, the tools of peaceful and productive agriculture are converted into weapons of war. “Proclaim this among the nations”, says the prophet in verse 9. “Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. Beat your ploughshares, into swords, and your pruning hooks, into spears. Bring down you warriors, O LORD!” Here the “working ingredients” of the visions of Micah and Isaiah – “judgement, nations, sword against nation, vine and fig tree” are taken up by Joel in a “dramatic”, and intentional, “reversal”. Here the “nations gather for war”, “undo the hoped-for disarmament”, and “bring on themselves the judgement that” in other circumstances might “have led to [a] just settlement”.5
When we consider Micah and Joel side by side, we see that the Bible teaches what history and experience teach: that we are trapped in a depressing cycle of war giving way to peace, giving way to war once again. War, like wrongdoing, is not yet banished from the earth. The Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, once commented that “we might indeed do without the sword, [if we] were angels in this world” – but as we are not, “the use of the sword will therefore continue, to the end of the world”.6 The First World War, after which Remembrance Sunday was first instituted, was supposed to be ‘the war to end all wars’. How hollow that aspiration rings today! The United Nations was formed after the horrors of the Second World War, and it made ‘Swords into Ploughshares’ its watchword. Yet in the eighty years since, we have witnessed the continuation of ploughshares being beaten into swords. With one eye on the news, do any of us really know what the future will hold?
Although this cycle of war, and peace, and war again, is inevitable in Scripture, in history, and in experience, we must never rest content with it. Remembrance Sunday is not simply an annual opportunity to reassure ourselves that the country we live in has only ever fought in just wars, and on the right side. There is something about war which should always shock and horrify us.
The concept of a just war is an interesting one. Today it is widely assumed that any war which has a just cause can be considered to be just. But that is not the case. There are many criteria that have been developed over the centuries to determine what a just war is and looks like. A just cause is certainly one of them, but a war that meets this one criterion and no others does not meet the threshold for being called a just war.
A just war:
- has a just cause,
- is waged by a legitimate authority,
- is waged as a last resort,
- with the intention of obtaining peace,
- without being motivated by hatred or revenge,
- with a probable chance of success,
- uses only means that are required for success; that do not do more harm than the harm they prevent; that do not harm the innocent; and that respect the provisions of international law.7
Fighting a just war, as distinct from a war simply in which the cause is just, is not an easy thing to do. That is why a former Archbishop of Canterbury, when asked at the start of a radio interview a couple of decades ago whether a certain war this country was fighting at the time was just or unjust, hesitated for thirty seconds – which seemed like an eternity on the radio – before attempting to give any sort of answer. While wrongdoing remains in the world, so too the threat of war will remain. “If we were angels in this world”, we might well do without the sword, but we are not, and “the use of the sword will therefore continue to the end of the world”. We human beings have a talent for turning over a new leaf, then tearing right through it. We have an aptitude for receiving the moral compass handed down by our forebears, and then breaking it. Our noble human “swords into ploughshares” projects co-exist with, or after a while they lead us back to, the nasty human reality of “ploughshares into swords”.
As I have said, we must never rest content with this state of affairs. We must long to see swords beaten into ploughshares again. We might wonder whether there is any basis for hoping, that the cycle will one day end, and the ploughshares will never turned into weapons again. Well, the Scriptures do give us a basis for hope, under a final heading
Swords into Ploughshares, forever
Joel’s vision of ‘Ploughshares into Swords’ looks ahead to a time when ‘the day of the LORD is near’, according to chapter 3, verse 14. It is a penultimate picture of the second-last reality. By contrast, Micah’s vision of ‘Swords into Ploughshares’ is of the last days themselves. It is a picture of the final reality, when mercy triumphs over judgment (cf. James 2:13). With one eye on the Bible, we really do know what the future will ultimately hold, whatever may take place in the meantime.
Without this firmly-based hope for the future, Remembrance Sunday might be a dark and mournful day. Hot on the heels of Remembrance Sunday needs to follow a glorious ‘Anticipation Sunday’ so that our hope in God may be sustained. And every year, that is exactly what happens, because the first Sunday in Advent, just a couple of weeks away now, always draws our attention to the return of Christ to establish his eternal kingdom and make all things new on the earth.
Of course, “we do not yet see everything subject to him” (Hebrews 2:8), and in the meantime it can be easy to lose anticipation, and fall into doubt and despair. “We do not yet see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus”, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews encourages us, “now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (2:9).
Buried in this phrase there is a clue, which neither Joel nor Micah possessed, a clue to the reality of the transformation of swords into ploughshares forever. We do not yet see that permanent transformation. But there is one thing that the world has already seen. The cruellest and most degrading instrument of violence and death, that has ever been devised in the history of the world, has been forever transformed into a universally recognised symbol of faith and hope and love.
Crucifixion wasn’t just designed to punish and kill, it was designed to shame, humiliate, break, and destroy. It took the atoning work of Christ and the resurrection power of God to permanently convert the cross from a damnable weapon into a tree of life, beneath which we can stand secure and hopeful.
“In what way shall I praise you?’ asked Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury in a meditation he wrote over 900 years ago, which was actually addressed to the Holy Cross, “how shall I exalt you? … By you, sinful humanity is justified, the condemned are saved, the servants of sin and hell are set free, the dead are raised to life. By you the blessed city in heaven is restored and made perfect.”8
“On each side of the river” in the city of God stands “the tree of life”, as we read in the book of Revelation, “and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). The cross of Christ, once a torture rack, has become for us the tree of life. This is how we know that the sword will be permanently transformed into the ploughshare. Clinging to this tree, we will live forever, our sins forgiven, and our lives restored to a state of original blessing, thanks be to God.
Without ever forgetting Remembrance Sunday, when we look back in sombre quiet and seriousness at all that has taken place, and in grateful memory of those who have lost their lives in war – without forgetting these things, today we will also glory in the cross, which was once an object of terror, but is now a sign of hope forever. And we will lean into Anticipation Sunday, and look forward to what is to come, when war will be no more, and God will be all in all. Amen.
1 See https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2005/02/27/158/
2 https://dam.media.un.org/archive/Sculpture–Let-Us-Beat-Swords-into-Plowshares–2AM9LO5PNQZK.html
3 Brevard Childs, Isaiah: A Commentary, p. 31.
4 ibid.
5 Christopher Seitz, Joel, p. 209.
6 John Calvin, Jonah, Micah and Nahum, p. 266
7 John Howard Yoder, When War is Unjust, p. 18.
8 The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm, p. 104.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 