This was delivered as a teaching on Sunday, December 14 to 8th Day Faith Community. The passage discussed is Isaiah 35:1-10.

So, it’s probably not much of a surprise to say, Christmas really is my favorite time of the year. I love the cold weather, I love the decorations and if you have ever been to our house during Christmas time you know that Marti is an amazing decorator. I love buying gifts, I love seeing people open gifts, I love many of the traditional Christmas shows – Rudolf and Santa Claus is Coming to Town are my favorites! I love Christmas music, though not much of a fan of Paul McCartney’s Christmas song. I love the family traditions and getting to be with people you love.

I love all of it.

So, as we are in the midst of Advent I can think of no better time to talk about that familiar Christmas topic of military bases. Yes, I said military bases. As I read the Scripture in Isaiah for this morning I thought of military bases.

Let me explain. Isaiah the prophet foretells the coming of the Messiah and it is easy to tell the Messiah will be present. Look at what will be different according to Isaiah:

• The dry land will blossom, the burning sand will become a pool with springs of water.
• Those who have weak hands and feeble knees will be strengthened. Indeed the lame will leap like the deer.
• The faint of heart will be fearless.
• The blind will see, the deaf will hear, and the mute will sing and shout for joy.
• A highway for God’s people will be built and there will be no danger found there.
• There will be such safety that God’s people will sing for joy.

There is no way we will mistake the coming of the Messiah. Things will be shockingly different.

In this way, Jesus is very much like a military base, at least from what we and the host country are promised. Defense Department officials and politicians are the Isaiah’s who promise us that local economies will blossom, new infrastructure will be built that benefits all people, there will be no reason to fear, and public safety will be paramount. But anthropologist David Vine in his excellent book, Base Nation, tells us our political leaders aren’t really Isaiah’s after all.

Vine writes about one of the most dramatic developments in the last 70 years that has not only gone unchallenged; it is not even discussed. Before World War II the United States did not have any military bases in other countries at all. Today we have 800 in over 70 countries.

Perhaps one similarity is that both Jesus and military bases kind of get taken for granted. While both Democrats and especially Republicans constantly talk about the need to lower spending in the discretionary budget, neither side ever talks about lowering the costs of our massive defense budget which has now reached $1 trillion. According to Vine, we spend around $100 billion on military bases worldwide every year, which is larger than spending for every governmental agency except for the Department of Defense itself. And that number has likely greatly increased since Vine’s book came out in 2015.

Like Jesus, we are told that US military bases will bring goodness and peace to the world. The United States, after all, are the good guys, and aren’t military personnel, like Jesus, here to serve? Don’t US military bases protect the countries they are located in and promote peace throughout the world?

Read Isaiah 35:1-10 once again:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus, it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and shouting. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. God will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. God will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp; the grass shall become reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

With that in mind let’s look at how David Vine shows some of the ways in which military bases bring change to the contexts in which they are located:

• Many bases were built in places that resulted in the displacement of indigenous populations, often from sacred places that had always been in their possession until the US took control. In one case, the Chagossians in the Pacific were removed from the island of Chagos to make room for a US naval base. As a result, they have been virtually eliminated. There are now only 10,000 Chagossians left in the entire world, scattered across several nations. Most live in poverty. Gone forever is much of their culture which was naturally tied to their island home.
• US military bases have often been placed in countries in collaboration with murderous dictators solely because murderous dictators so often greenlight US corporate interests since both dictators and US corporations have almost no concern for the welfare of the people in host countries. Vine illustrates this through the history of the US presence in Honduras, which became literally the first “banana republic.” Honduran leaders sold out the interests of Honduran farmers by giving control of the land to the US-based United Fruit Company (and later Chiquita and Dole). Like so many other places in the world, US military bases have gone hand in hand with corporate interests for the purpose of protecting the corporate interests over and above the welfare of local vulnerable populations.
• The environmental footprint of military bases is enormous. In 2000, by the military’s own estimates, bases inside the US alone “contained 28,538 toxic waste sites, with nearly twenty seven million acres of contaminated property. The estimated cleanup costs are nearly $50 billion.” (p. 138) Considering that many countries have no environmental regulations at all, there is no telling how harmful an impact US military bases have had on local communities.
• US Military bases have been centers for sexual assault and rape of women in the military and women in local surrounding communities. A group formed in Okinawa, Japan called Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence documented 350 crimes against women committed by US servicemen between 1945 and 2011. The key word here is “documented.” Many sexual assault crimes go underreported, but this is even more pronounced when those that commit them represent foreign military powers and are often seen as outside local legal accountability.

In the end, Jesus and military bases of course have nothing in common. US military bases overseas legitimate strongmen dictators, perpetuate human rights abuses, and promote undemocratic ideals. Military bases displace people, wreck local economies, breed sexual violence, and destroy the environment. They most certainly do not promote peace.

Now, while this may seem an odd message to be bringing during Advent season, foreign powers causing devastation to local communities is actually quite on point as we await the coming of Jesus, God Emmanuel. Christian nationalism wrongly holds that God is using the most powerful nation on earth to bring peace and good news to the world. We who follow the biblical Jesus know that Jesus’ birth signaled the beginning of a revolution; a revolution where systems that protect exploitive economic powers are transformed into solidarity economies where those who have much do not have too much and those who have little do not have too little.

Jesus’s birth brings forth a world that has no more need of militaries. The generational disputes that fuel violence and death between nations are once and for all settled because weapons of war will be beaten into instruments that provide for food and the well-being of all people. Jesus’ birth reminds us of God’s preference for the poor and that the locus of God’s change and transformation in the world does not come through military force or political power, but rather, through the simple and ordinary people who give of themselves sacrificially for others.

We who follow the biblical Jesus and who reside in the United States must look to our neighbors in the Global South for our liberation is inexplicably intertwined with theirs. We reject the military force our government uses and instead, we find liberation when we use our political power to defund military bases and transfer the massive wealth of the military budget into local communities like the South side of Chicago, the countries of Central America, Wards 7 and 8 in DC, Southeast Asia, Gaza, Southwest Los Angeles and so many other places. This Advent season, may we not be lulled into passivity by the cacophony of Christmas commercialism sponsored by the US imperial military industrial complex and instead, may we be awakened by the revolution that began in a Bethlehem barn when a poor woman gave birth to a baby boy.