A Foretaste of Things to Come

Scripture: Micah 4: 1-7

Sermon: A Foretaste of Things to Come

Topics: foretaste, hope, disarmament, guns, garden tools

Preached: February 17, 2019

Rev. Mike Abma

Micah 4: 1-7

4In days to come

the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised up above the hills.

Peoples shall stream to it,

² and many nations 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.

³ He shall judge between many peoples,

and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;

they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,

and their spears into pruning-hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more;

⁴ but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,

and no one shall make them afraid;

for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

⁵ For all the peoples walk,

each in the name of its god,

but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God

for ever and ever.

⁶ On that day, says the Lord,

   I will assemble the lame

and gather those who have been driven away,

   and those whom I have afflicted. 

⁷ The lame I will make the remnant,

   and those who were cast off, a strong nation;

and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion

   now and for evermore. 

THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD

THANKS BE TO GOD

INTRODUCTION MICAH the PROPHET

Micah is one of those prophets who brought a blunt and brutal message to Israel.

Micah’s cries for justice are legendary.

If you know one prophetic text, it may be the one from Micah 6:8

Act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

Micah can also be pretty graphic.

When he writes about the rich and powerful oppressing the poor and weak in his 3^rd chapter, he describes the powerful as if they were cannibals, devouring the poor.

Micah can also be kind of funny.

In Micah 2:11 he says that there will always be prophets ready to say whatever people want to hear — so there will always be prophets who proclaim

that there is going to be plenty of beer and wine.

But Micah’s main message is a warning:

things were bad and they were going to get worse.

Israel in the north had the Assyrians at their gate.

Judah in the south would soon have the Babylonians at their gate.

MICAH 4 — RAY OF HOPE

But Micah is not all doom and gloom.

Chapter 4 bursts forth with a vision of a better and brighter day.

A day when nations would stream towards God’s mountain

so that they could listen to the Lord

and learn the ways of the Lord.

Micah says this mountain is Zion, it is Jerusalem — a New Jerusalem.

DISARMAMENT

Let’s start with the first image Micah gives – the image of disarmament.

When these nations all begin streaming to Zion, the city of God,

their disputes are suddenly settled.

There is no reason to be fighting.

There is no reason to carry weapons.

So all the old weapons that were used to attack others are transformed:

Swords are beat into plowshares.

By the way, do you even know what a plowshare is?

You know what a plow is, right?

Well, the bottom edge of a plow, the edge that cuts into the earth —

that is a plowshare.

That is why swords could make pretty good plowshares.

The text goes on to say that spears will be transformed into pruning hooks.

I imagine in this vision that even the words we used

to hurl at one another,

to hurt and wound one another,

will be transformed into

words that heal,

words that restore,

words that help rather than hurt.

Here in this poem, Micah sees a world in which

all the energy nations once used to protect and expand their influence

is suddenly turned upside-down.

In this vision, all that energy is used to produce and to share whatever we have.

What an amazing vision.

ARMS OF KRUPP

Over Christmas, I read William Manchester’s massive book on the Krupp family called The Arms of Krupp.

The 1000-page book is all about the Krupp family.

The Krupp family is a German family that became known for its forging of steel in the 1560’s in the Ruhr Valley near Essen.

By the late 1900’s, the Krupp family was running a huge business

making and selling steel products all over the world.

By the time World War 1 broke out, the Krupp family was running the largest

company in the world.

Why? Because they specialized in weapons and had become the largest

arms dealer in the world.

Perhaps you have heard of Big Bertha.

Perhaps you know it as a golf club – a big driver.

But Big Bertha was originally a huge canon used in the First World War.

It was made by the Krupp company.

This same Krupp company also became the arms manufacturer for Germany and Adolph Hitler in the Second World War. They made everything for the Nazi’s: their tanks, their submarines, their warships, their howitzers.

In reading this book, it becomes clear that the Krupp family did not have to make weapons. They were doing fine as a company making railway lines and other steel products. But they turned to weapons because they could make so much more money making weapons. They turned to weapons because they thought they could make Germany great because their weapons were better than anyone else’s.

The Krupp company did not stop making weapons until they were forced to stop.

But in the picture Micah paints and the vision he has,

no country is trying to be greater or stronger than another.

Each country is content.

Each individual is content.

Each person is sitting under their own vine,

under their own fig tree

and they are not afraid that someone will come and take that away.

Here is a world in which there is no market for weapons.

No one will buy them because no one needs them.

What an amazing picture –

no weapons;

no guns;

no machines of mass destruction.

ECHOES OF THIS PASSAGE

Every once in a while you run into something that seems to echo the vision of this passage.

I remember visiting the Chapel at Princeton University in New Jersey.

We were told that the oak pews in that Chapel were made from wood that was meant for canon carriages.

Kind of nice to hear, since so many church bells over the centuries have been melted down to make canons.

I recently read of a Presbyterian Church in Homs, Syria, that had been used as a military headquarters during the recent civil war there.

A few months ago the Pastor and congregation took their church back.

They moved the pulpit back in.

They moved the baptismal font back in.

They moved the communion table back in.

This place that was a military headquarters,

is now what it was meant to be —

a place to worship God.

…..swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks….

REHABILITATION

There is a young blacksmith named Michael Martin who decided he wanted to do something to try make Micah 4 more of a reality.

So he started RAWtools.org

RAW is WAR spelled backwards.

What does Michael do at RAWtools?

He melts down AR-15’s and AK-47’s and all kinds of other guns,

and he literally makes them into hoes, and hand cultivators and other garden tools – tools he calls RAW tools.

He does more than that.

He invites the victims of gun violence to come to his shop,

so that they can literally beat the metal of the gun on the anvil

in order to re-shape and re-purpose it.

This is all part of the healing process for these victims.^[1]

That concern for healing and rehabilitating victims is also part of Micah’s vision.

That is the part of the picture that we often miss.

That is the part in verses 6-7

that deals with the lame, those driven away, and the afflicted.

In other words, the part of this passage that deals with all the victims of war.

All those lame and injured in war will be gathered together.

All those driven away, namely the refugees of war, will be welcomed home.

All the afflicted of war,

all those suffering from PTSD

or any of those other mental and spiritual wounds of war,

will finally find peace

All these victims of war

who were once weak

are now the ones who have been made strong.

Micah paints this amazing picture

of that time when

all wars end,

all weapons are re-purposed

and all victims are rehabilitated.

CONCLUSION

Last week a small group of Woodlawn members had communion

with Rog and Ellie VanHarn at their house.

Rog told us all why communion meant so much to him –

“It is a foretaste of that kingdom to come,” he said.

“It is a foretaste of that time

when all wars end,

when all divisions cease,

and we all live as one before the glory of God.”

In a moment we will take the bread

we will take the cup

and we will say,

“Thank you Lord for this promise

and this foretaste

of what will come.”

Amen

1. See Michael Martin and Shane Claiborne, “Why and How We Beat Guns into Garden Tools” in Christian Century March 4, 2019. ↑