“4 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.4 Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.”
Good morning. Cause of death. Whether it’s tomorrow or 60 years from now, all of us will have a cause of death assigned to us. Some days I think it might be the play of the Cincinnati Reds that will cause my heart to stop. Other days it seems that chaperoning and counseling teenage boys will be my undoing.
While the list of decisions and decisions that bring about death will always remain extensive, some advances in research and technology have been able to remove some. More and more chronic conditions can be managed amazingly well with a combination of medications, diet, and exercise.
Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and asthma were once leading causes of death. Today, however, many men and women are living full lives despite their diagnosis. We have even reached a point in health and science that one can manage their HIV and prevent it from becoming the death sentence it had been just 30 years ago.
But how is it in an age of unrivaled progress and unparalleled wealth that HUNGER remains a cause of death in 2019? How is it that we can transplant bone marrow in the fight against cancer, and somehow not transplant the harvest of one field to the field of another?
Certainly we can spend hours and days debating the factors and forces committed to seeing hunger endure. And yet the end result of hunger becomes something everyone can see quite quickly. Regardless of the causes of hunger, the result remains the same and that result is INJUSTICE.
Sure floods and droughts can destroy homes and ruin crops, but floods and droughts do no absolve men and women of God from acting justly. Yes dictators and civil wars can divert aid and disrupt relief, but dictators and civil wars do not discharge men and women of God from loving mercy.
MLK, Jr. once said, “…injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This is especially true when it comes to the injustice of hunger when we acknowledge that the effects of hunger do not confine themselves to one village or one country. Rather, the effects of hunger go out into all the Earth. Anytime a child or parent dies of hunger, all of us are diminished whether we realize it or not. Anytime a child or parent is denied the opportunity of education, all of us are degraded.
So what can we do in the face of hunger, in the face of injustice? Earlier I alluded to the prophet, Micah, and his charge to the people of Israel saying, “ …He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God.” Now just two chapters prior, Micah shares a vision of not only what CAN be done about hunger and injustice, but also what WILL be done about hunger and injustice.
According to Micah, justice begins with learning the ways of the Lord. For it is the ways of the Lord that teaches men and women of God how to fashion the tools they will need to carry out justice. And what are the tools of justice? Plowshares and pruning hooks. One acts as a tool used by farmers to turnover soil in preparation for planting, the other wielded by gardeners to preserve the structural integrity of fruit bearing plants and trees.
You see God aims not only to achieve peace between the nations, but God also intends to grow something. I suspect most pacifists like myself often fail to consider that peace alone will not put an end to violence. If you and I share a commitment to nonviolence, then we would do well to remember that putting an end to violence is only a part of the process in creating and sustaining a loving and just reality.
Micah 4 remind all pacifists that genuine peace and justice exists not only in the absence of violence, but also exists in presence of provision. Have you ever considered why the people of Micah 4 were no longer afraid? It was because they were no longer hungry. Rather than experience the terror of starvation, the people of Micah 4 were filled with the figs from the trees under which they stood. Instead of feeling the dread of famine, the people of Micah 4 were satisfied by the fruit plucked from the vines strewn above them.
So this coming week may we ask ourselves what we can plant and grow in our earnest pursuit of peace and justice. If we listen to Micah 4, then perhaps it starts with slicing into the soil instead of each other. Maybe it begins with cutting off the rotten parts of our hearts rather than cutting ourselves off from one another. Regardless of how it begins, we know from Micah 4 that the day we put an end to hunger is the day we put an end to fear.
CJE