Light and life. Darkness and strife. Who was there to see it?

In the beginning, or so the story goes, God created the heavens and the earth.

In the beginning, or so the story goes, there was a word.

But what kind of word? What kind of word would it be? And what would this word do? Was there more than word, in the beginning with God? Was there more than one?

Perhaps not just one solitary word, but a couple, a few. Not one, but two or three.

Into the darkness, into the chaos of it all, three words emerged, harmonizing the absurd, with the faithful chorus, “let there be.”

Light and dark, night and day.

“Let there be” heard twice; and firmament, skies, earth and sea are made.

“Let there be,” bright moon and stars, and sun in the skies. Brother sun and sister moon to mark the years, the seasons and days.

“Let there be,” living creatures of every kind, fish and birds fruitfully multiply.

“Let there be,” the earth is full of the goodness of God, animals, livestock and keepers for this unbridled zoo.

And yet this coursing humanity finds itself heading towards calamity, towards life and love, and the deep-seeded vanity that would tear them apart. Leaving the nest, the garden, the communion of saints to roam. To roam incessantly, only to find themselves wandering and yearning for home. A home they’d always hoped for. A home they’d once had.

A home, a gift that was wasted.

A home, a gift they wish they still had.

A meditation on Isaiah 2.5-22

Culture is not optional.

I’m pretty sure that my former colleague, Calvin Seerveld, coined that phrase.

Culture is not optional because there is no such thing as human life together that is not at heart a culture-forming enterprise. Human language, family structures, gender relations, economies, agriculture and creative expression is all culturally founded and culturally formative.

And for ancient Israel, culture making is at the very foundation of human identity. We are mandated to be fruitful, to multiply and to “fill” the earth.

That’s what culture is all about. It is a filling exercise. Not that the earth is empty, but that the human creature has the unique call to fill creation with cultural artifacts, traditions, institutions and relationships that serve to open up creational potentials. My friend Bob Goudzwaard calls this a process of disclosure.

And cities, are a societal, spatial, economic, political and aesthetic concentration of such cultural filling. Cities fill their geographical space with people, with transportation systems, with the arts, with buying and selling, with political structures, with homes and neighbourhoods, celebrations and community.

And so, it seems to me, that just as culture is not optional, so also is urban life not optional. For good or ill, the culture forming creature is invariably also a city-building creature.

Culture is not optional and cities are not optional.

Culture may not be optional, but neither is it determined. There are various ways in which we engage in culture-forming, various ways in which we can build cities. Indeed, there are various ways to engage in cultural and urban ‘filling.’

For example, if you fill your cities with fossil fuel burning automobiles, paving vast tracks of the land and prioritizing the automobile over public transit, bicycles, and pedestrian traffic, then you will create a noisy and smelly city with poor air quality that will be decidedly inhospitable to human species on foot and other species on wing. And this automotive filling of your city will have devastating implications for neighbourhood life (if you don’t walk, you don’t meet your neighbours), health and safety (just look at the statistics on injury and death, not to mention respiratory disease because of the car) and the city budget (the infrastructure for the automobile is decidedly more expensive than that of other modes of transportation).

Not all urban ‘filling’ is created equal. Indeed, much urban filling is decidedly deformative, closing down a rich urban life of diverse communities in a city that is socially, economically, ecological and culturally fruitful and sustainable.

And that is precisely what Isaiah is on about in our this text that hardly ever gets any attention.

The prophet perceives a city that is full.

There are the intellectual elite from various cultures, serving as advisors to the ruling authorities. The city is full of these consultants, all paid a handsome wage.

That they are earning their keep is evidenced by the economic wealth of this city. It is full of silver and gold, there is no end to their treasures. Isn’t that what cities are all about? Civic machines that generate wealth for the economic elite?

And once you’ve got that kind of wealth around, well then, of course you will need a strong police and military establishment in order to protect those treasures and those who hold that wealth.

But this prophet sees more.

This prophet sees past the shining towers of the financial district and the proliferation of condos for the wealthy while homelessness continues to plague thousands in his city.

He sees past the well-spoken educated classes with their fine economic analysis and cultural tastes, while the poor continue to struggle with literacy.

He sees past the rhetoric of tax reductions for the owners of cars and the smoke of budget cuts to libraries, homeless shelters and other social services.

He sees past the security establishment that keeps the G20 protestors in their place.

He sees past the ideology of the ruling classes with their endless treasures and security apparatus.

He sees past all of this and sees a city full not only of soothsayers, gold, horses and chariots – this is a city full of idols.

Humans are created in the image of God and called to fill the earth. If, in sin, we choose not to image God, we will still fill the earth.

Remember, culture is not optional.

But we will fill the earth, construct our culture, and fill our cities in the image of idols.

If we do not image God, then we will necessarily and inevitably bow the knee, subject our lives and construct our cities in service of graven images.

Call this “Biblical Anthropology 101.”

So far, this prophet is just a man with clear vision.

Anyone with eyes could see that this city had bowed the knee to idols in its urban planning, its priorities, its understanding of what makes for a ‘world class city.’

Anyone could see that lying behind that self-interested ideology, civic self-aggrandizement, and urban planning for myopic economic growth was idolatry.

But this prophet sees even more.

In the face of this world class city of education, wealth and security, in the face of this city full of idols, the prophet conjures up an impossible scenario.

It all comes crumbling down.
In a series of prophetic reversals the haughty eye is brought low,
…the proud and arrogant are humbled.

“It’s time for the horizons of the universe to be glimpsed even by the faceless kings of corporations” – and in that glimpse, it all comes crashing down.

“It’s time for chaos to win and walk off with the prize which turns out to be nothing.”

The civilizational order of this city, built as it is on idolatry, will collapse and chaos will reign.

Why? Why can’t such an urban experiment succeed?

Why?

Because God aligns himself against this city in all of its splendour,
…against this culture in all of its beauty,
…against this economy in all of its wealth,
…against this built environment in all of its arrogance.

Ten times, the prophet repeats that word – against, against, against.

And beyond the range of normal sight in this city of idolatry, the prophet sees that “the idols shall utterly pass away.”

These idols that exude such power, such permanence, such authority, will utterly pass away.

They will be so useless that when the collapse comes, when the arrogant and powerful are looking for a hole to crawl into, they’ll have to throw away their idols to the moles and the bats.

Empty handed, they will leave these unclean symbols of cultural filling for the pleasure of unclean animals. That’s all that they will be good for.

So culture is not optional.
And cities are not optional either.
But that means that we must struggle to maintain real options for our cultural and urban lives.
…Real options for a sustainable city.
…Real options for the shaping of communities of neighbourliness.
…Real options for a city full of creativity and imagination.
…Real options for a city of justice for the most marginalized.
…Real options for democratic freedom of expression.
…Real options for homemaking in secure housing.
…Real options for those excluded from power and opportunity.
…Real options for kids to play, to learn, to grow.

Culture is not optional, but idolatry will always close down our real options.

And so the prophet offers an alternative:

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord. (Is. 2.5).

Culture is not optional and urban life is not optional.

Let us be a people who seek the shalom of the city,
who seek a city of peace,
and who will build the city of God, in the light of the Lord,
in the light of his Word.

Republished with permission from www.huffingtonpost.com

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward

These lines, from Bruce Cockburn’s hauntingly beautiful song “Pacing the Cage,” have been my constant companions as I have been reflecting on the year that was and the year that is to come. As the sun sets on another year of violence on the battlefields of war and urban conflict, another year of ecological despoliation coupled with economic greed, another year of political duplicity and media distraction, you can see the blood everywhere.

Maybe you can see an angel weeping, holding out a bloody sword. Weeping over the blood stained year that has passed. Weeping over that sword of judgment still gripped in his hand. There is blood on that sword, but it has not finished its violent judgment. There is more to come and no matter how the artist squints, he cannot discern where that sword is now pointing. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. But whatever the reason, Cockburn then sings,

Sometimes you feel like you’ve lived too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

There is a world weariness to it all. One damn year of violence after another. When you’ve seen so much blood over the years, and you are either too confused or too numb to make any sense of it, well, “you catch yourself / pacing the cage.”

In an earlier song, reflecting on another sunset, this Canadian singer/songwriter described a world “ill at ease,” a “fraying rope getting closer to breaking” (“Hills of Morning”). And while folks kept on “moving back and forth / in between effect and cause” the artist had another vision. “Just beyond the range of normal sight” he saw “this glittering joker dancing in the dragon’s jaws.”

“Just beyond the range of normal sight.” That is what Walter Brueggemann calls “a prophetic imagination.” A vision that goes beyond what is seen to the naked eye. A vision that discerns the spirit of the times, the deep dynamics of history, and maybe even the movement of God.

Such prophetic vision is often found in the poetry of song and Bruce Cockburn’s art is suffused with a prophetic imagination. Cockburn’s art is prophetic in Brueggemann’s sense of the term because it nurtures, nourishes and evokes “a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture” (“The Prophetic Imagination,” p. 3). Whether naming the reality of trickle down economics as “trickle down blood” (“Trickle Down”), identifying the administration of George W. Bush as the village idiot who “takes the throne” (“All Our Dark Tomorrows”), deconstructing what they “call” democracy as “modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom” (“Call it Democracy”) or more evocatively naming our malaise as “hooked on avarice” (“Trickle Down”) because humans have this tragic disposition to “create what destroys / bind ourselves to betray” (“Beautiful Creatures”), Cockburn’s art has always seen “just beyond the range of normal sight.”

And with countless others, Cockburn’s songs have often given me a glimpse beyond the normal. A glimpse that sometimes breaks through my culturally imposed numbness, sometimes allows me to hear “rumours of glory” in the midst of the betrayal and ruins (“Rumours of Glory”), sometimes reminds me of the mystery that is at the heart of things.

With Cockburn I have sometimes been able to identify my deepest longings — personally, culturally, economically and ecologically — as “waiting for a miracle.”

Struggle for a dollar, scuffle for a dime
Step out from the past and try to hold the line
So how come history takes such a long, long time
When you’re waiting for a miracle

So how come history takes such a long, long time — when you are longing for personal wholeness, when you are looking for a world in which the 1 percent do not rule the 99 percent, when you are hoping for sanity to prevail over self-interested ideology in the affairs of state, when you are struggling to find meaningful work and dignity for your neighborhood youth, when you are praying that the church be released from her cultural captivity — when you are waiting for a miracle?

Perhaps it is out of such impatient longing and waiting, out of a crying out “how long, Lord? How long, must we wait for a miracle?” that I now look at that “angel weeping, holding out a bloody sword” and I can’t for the life of me make any sense of it all. No matter how I squint I can’t discern the meaning of this violence, and I sure as hell can’t see where the blood will flow next.

And yet Cockburn’s music will not leave us lost in such disorientation. He will not leave us with this “ache in the spirit / we label despair” (“Beautiful Creatures”). As an artist with a prophetic imagination, he will not avert his gaze from the brokenness, he will not cover up the disappointments, but he also will not leave us without hope. That’s what prophets do. They criticize and dismantle what is, in order to energize us with an alternative vision, an alternative hope of what can be. The spirits of the age meet the Spirit of the age to come.

In one song, Cockburn describes that Spirit of the age to come as a “Messenger Wind”:

Messenger wind swooping out of the sky
Lights each tiny speck in the human kaleidoscope
With hope

When the sun is setting on a year of violence in which bloodshed has followed bloodshed, what we most desperately need is hope. When you feel like you are living “in the falling dark,” what you desperately need is something that will lighten “each tiny speck in the human kaleidoscope / with hope.”

And so, in 2012, Bruce Cockburn will sing us songs of prophetic critique and prophetic hope. We should raise our glasses and sing with him,

And don’t tell me there is no mystery
Mystery
Mystery
And don’t tell me there is no mystery
It overflows my cup

This feast of beauty can intoxicate
Intoxicate
Intoxicate
This feast of beauty can intoxicate
Just like the finest wine

So all you stumblers who believe love rules
Believe love rules
Believe love rules
Come all you stumblers who believe love rules
Stand up and let it shine
Stand up and let it shine (“Mystery”)

Brian J. Walsh’s most recent book is ‘Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination’ (Brazos Press). He is a regular contributor to empireremixed.com.

Keep giving us Christians a hard time. We desperately need it.

Here’s the link.

Imagine a day when everyone was a part of a caring community of people who loved each other.

Consider a day when everyone shared their stuff; in fact, no one believed anything was ‘their stuff’ but that it belonged to the whole community.

Imagine a time when no one felt the need to abuse the people in their community by taking advantage of people’s kindness.

Imagine a time when everyone had someone to love and knew that someone loved them.

Just imagine!

Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!

The Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee are impressive institutions in the socio-economic life of Israel, but they aren’t regular topics of conversation during Advent. And this is, ostensibly, with good reason. It would seem that even the most creative theologians might be hard pressed to establish a connection between Israel’s socio-economic life and our expectant awaiting of the birth of Jesus.

But a faithful reading of the Gospel of Luke – the gospel we turn to for an in depth account of our Saviour’s unorthodox birth – suggests otherwise. In fact, in the Gospel of Luke we find that there is a very precise connection between the laws of Sabbath and jubilee and the child for whom there was no room at the inn. Luke tells us that Jesus is the agent of a new kind of jubilee.

For us to see this connection properly, however, we’ll need to look briefly at the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee.

The Sabbatical Year is characterized by remission and release. In short, its laws state that any social or economic imbalances that have accrued between Israelites over the course of six years are to be leveled in the seventh. (Deuteronomy 15) All claims held against one’s neighbour are to be dropped and all Israelites who have been forced to sell themselves into slavery are to be set free (and sent away with a “liberal” provision of wheat and wine!). So the Sabbatical Year is about restoring socio-economic equality within Israel.

And the Year of Jubilee is characterized by return. Every fifty years, on the Day of Atonement, the Israelites are to sound the trumpet loudly throughout the entire nation in a proclamation of jubilee. They are to return to their ancestral land – land which has been sold or leveraged in the process of economic exchange – and receive it back. (Leviticus 25) The Year of Jubilee ensures that every Israelite has access to land, and in an agricultural society this is of primary importance. Jubilee is regulated asset recovery. In the same way as the Sabbatical Year, it promotes equality within Israel.

The Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee are limits placed by God on the economic life of Israel that point toward the realization of shalom. And when we consider their relation on a more fundamental level, it becomes evident that they are rooted in three common ideals: forgiveness, liberation and healing.

The forgiveness of debts and the liberation of the enslaved in the Sabbatical Year are acts which bring about healing. And the redistribution of assets in the Year of Jubilee is a kind of socio-economic healing that, combined with forgiveness, brings about liberation. To those who are indebted because they fell victim to circumstance and to those who have squandered their inheritance on reckless living, there is forgiveness, there is liberation and there is healing in the Year of Jubilee.

And here’s where the connection with Advent exists. When we read on in the Gospel of Luke, what we find is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus that is structured around themes of Sabbath and Jubilee. But this isn’t coincidence; this is an overt statement from the author that Jesus’ life and ministry are about forgiveness, liberation and healing.

The first indication is Luke’s opening account of Jesus’ ministry, where Jesus reads a jubilee passage from Isaiah in Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the Year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18–19) Jesus doesn’t just happen to read this passage, he reads it with intention. And this same intention is present in his exceedingly short meditation on the scripture that follows: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)

As Luke tells it, Jesus begins his ministry by announcing that he is the agent of jubilee. Who is this man? He is the one who has been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor and liberty to the captives. He is the one who brings forgiveness, liberation and healing.

But in case we missed the first jubilee reference, Luke includes a second one. When the disciples of John the Baptist are sent to Jesus asking if he is the one to come, he responds first by healing people of diseases and restoring sight to the blind (enacting jubilee), and second with a proclamation of jubilee: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:21–23)

Again, there is nothing cryptic about these words. Is he the one to come? Yes! He is the Anointed One, the agent of jubilee who brings forgiveness, liberation and healing!

Since Luke makes this point so clearly, we can think of his Gospel as a kind of jubilee proclamation. Of course, there is something slightly different about the jubilee that it proclaims. As opposed to Israel’s socio-economic jubilee, it bears witness to the jubilee of all jubilees. It announces that Jesus grants remission and release from sin, and he restores the distorted and the broken to new life. This jubilee is not oriented only toward shalom in Israel, it is the means by which shalom is restored between God and humanity. Jesus brings forgiveness, liberation and healing to all of us, and his forgiveness, liberation and healing go all the way down.

In Advent, then, what we expectantly await is the arrival of a new kind of jubilee. It is for all people, and it comes to us in the form of the infant Jesus. And if the entirety of Luke’s gospel is a proclamation of this new jubilee, then the birth narrative of Jesus can be thought of as the trumpeter drawing in her breath, pursing her lips and raising her instrument on the Day of Atonement.

In Advent we are filled with excitement because we know what the child in the manger is about to deliver. We know that a radical new jubilee has been proclaimed by the life and ministry of Jesus, and we know that against the hopelessness and the chaos that remain so tangible, the trumpet is about to sound.

Imagine a day when everyone had meaningful work for meaningful pay.

Consider a time when people didn’t have to take a job that was degrading, humiliating and went against their own personal values just so they could pay the bills and feed their children.

Imagine a world where there was no such thing as a power hungry, greedy employer who didn’t care about anything but her/his profit margin.

Just imagine!

Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!

Imagine a world where when someone asks “are you ready for Christmas?” it didn’t mean “have you braved the frantic masses of bargain hunters in malls so that you can buy all the useless presents for the people you care for so you can prove you love them?”

Imagine a day when getting ready for Christmas meant preparing our hearts, our homes, our families for the coming of the Saviour of the world.

Just imagine!

Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!

Imagine a world where no one felt lonely.

Imagine a day when no one ever felt isolated, left out, misunderstood, abandoned or marginalized.

Consider a time when no one ever again found themselves feeling completely alone while in a crowd of people who were having seemingly stimulating conversations and joy filled laughter.

Imagine a world where no one ever felt so disconnected from everyone around them that they considered running away or even taking their own life.

Just imagine!

Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!

Imagine a world without anyone who was depressed.

Imagine a time when no one was schizophrenic, bipolar, psychotic, or had a personality disorder.

Consider a day when people weren’t imprisoned because they did something outside of their control; a day when jails weren’t over populated with folks who were mentally ill because prison was society’s best response to this severe health issue.

Even better, imagine this wasn’t an issue to have to deal with because no one was mentally ill in the first place.

Just imagine!

Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!