Before I plant a crop, first I dig in the dirt of my garden and then I water the little plot and give it over to the birds for a day or two. The birds like to eat all the grubs and beatles I unearthed with my digging. Once the birds think they have eaten everything there is to eat in my little plot, I plant tiny seeds and sit back to wait. Sometimes it takes two weeks or more for anything to come up, but soon I get green sprigs that grow into tomatoes, onions, carrots, parsley, lettuce, flowers, and weeds. We don’t get enough to survive out of this garden but it does make a salad for us. I think of the people of ancient days who learned that seeds planted in the ground yield food, and enough cultivated ground can support a family or a clan. The clan could then stop wandering to find fields of grain and wild animals to eat. Eventually clans settled and built permanent houses and cultivated the ground permanently. But then man’s greed took over, didn’t it? This is where the swords and spears were used. No longer were crops planted, but weapons were forged instead. Big powerful people took the land of little weak people and either killed the weak with swords or enslaved them to cultivate the land and feed the powerful ones who bacame "rich". The rich could then lie back on luxurious couches and be fed. But then other powerful people saw the lands and wanted them. The powerful peoples wanted each others’ lands and crops. In the dark of the night, plans were made and swords and spears were forged. In the daylight the armies met and fought wars. The weak people, the "spoils of war," were passed with the ownership of the property to the victors. The prophet Micah wrote about this as he looked out over the enslaved people of Israel. He promised them that the faithful few would be saved and eventually would own their land again. It might be in another time, but freedom would come. Then in that better, future time, Micah wrote, the "strong and distant nations… shall beat their swords into plow shares, and their spears into pruning hooks…Every man shall sit under his own vine or under his own fig tree, undisturbed" (Micah 4: 3-4). To have land and a fig tree meant prosperity to the people of Israel. The promise of land and a fig tree meant once again the people could protect themselves, set up boundaries, and grow food for themselves. Greed and darkness have not been overcome yet. We forge bigger swords and spears every day when what each man should be doing is planting his own field.
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