The Word Breaks Through: An Act of Wisdom

In 1980, the workers in Poland had been struggling for a decade or more to establish the right to collective organising, the right to trade unions. Their struggle was not just to meet together or to be able to bargain collectively. It was the struggle to have their voices heard at all in a regime governed by a bureaucratic communist elite. On their own, the would-be trade unionists were small pieces in the Polish system of government. They and their families were at the mercy of policies and legislation completely out of their reach to influence. Together, there was the possibility of making a real difference.

The struggle had taken its toll. As a result of various strikes prior to 1980, workers had lost their jobs, the livelihoods and their lives. Lech Walesa was just another worker active in the struggle, although not very active at work. He’d lost successive jobs because of his activism.

In mid-1980, a further price rise on food led to desperate workers staging another strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk. Walesa was not among them. He was not a worker at the yard. Some reports say that enthusiasm for the strike was waning. Certainly, the strikers would have been under immense pressure politically, economically and psychologically. Many recountings of the story suggest that the strike wasn’t going anywhere, but then…

On 14 August 1980, Lech Walesa climbed the shipyard fence to get inside to join those who were fighting for their rights, even though he was not at the time a worker there. He’d been fired for political agitation.

Well, any of you old enough to have lived through that period will have at least a vague idea of what happened next. Other workplaces joined the strike action. The Inter-Plant Strike Committee was established to coordinate the action. The workers won their right to strike (to collectively withdraw their labour in protest of unfair employment practices) and to have an independent trade union. The coordinating committee became the National Coordinating Committee for Solidarność (Solidarity) Free Trade Union. Wałęsa was chosen as its chairperson. And Poland was on its way to democratisation—all because someone outside of the action dared to climb the fence to become part of it. All because someone had the courage to make an intervention.

I remember hearing about Walesa’s unique ability to intervene in group action to direct or re-direct its purpose in helpful ways in my first year of sociology at the University of Queensland. It was nearly 30 years and just a few years after the birth of Solidarity. The story caught my attention. The ability to analyse what was going on in a group, the imagination to know what to do to achieve a re-direction and the courage to take that action to intervene in a group situation sounded like an act not just of knowledge and awareness, but of wisdom—a timely intervention that changed the course of history.

Interventions are all the rage today in politics and counselling, preventative medicine and social policy. They’re meant to stop people doing harmful things, change the nature of society or the outlook of an individual, fix things up, speed things up or slow things down—“an intentional intercession or act to bring about change” (Opt & Gring 2009).

Our world looks for interventions that will help us battle disease and poverty, redistribute resources, make our communities healthier, happier and safer. We look for interventions that will heal us, help us, make us well, that will save us.

Today, as Christians, we celebrate what must be for us the intervention of all interventions—the mother of interventions—an intentional intercession or act that brought and continues to bring about change in our lives individually, as communities, as the wonderful, damaged Creation of God. This act, this intervention, this intercession is literally an act of God. It is God’s intervention in God’s very own Creation in and for the sake of that Creation. It is incarnation—God becoming human, God becoming creaturely, God, the Creator entering the Creation in order to bring about change; in order that we might understand a little, just a little something of what God is all about; in order that we might turn again to God who is the author of our being and our redemption; in order that we might be enfolded into real relationship with God—“our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made [hu]man… [so] shall his love be fully showed, and we shall then be lost in God” in the words of Charles Wesley (Together in Song 305).

This intervention was and is a real breakthrough. God reveals God’s self completely in the person of Jesus, a vulnerable baby, a teacher and healer, a prophet, a persistent problem for the authorities, a victim of Roman crucifixion, and the firstborn child of the new Creation, resurrected from the dead. In God becoming one of us, we are enfolded again into God. We are redeemed as God’s glorious Creation and re-commissioned in God’s service. It is a real breakthrough and in it, we are offered real change—change that wants the world to honour God which means loving God, loving our neighbours including our enemies, and caring for the whole of God’s Creation; change that means we know that it’s not all about us or all up to us, but that everything and everyone is in the hands of God; change that means the whole Creation will know peace and reconciliation with God our Creator. This intervention is an act of Wisdom bar none.

This intervention is an act, a movement, an complete experience—full immersion in the very thing that God has made. “[T]he Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Theologians have wrestled with the concept from the very beginning of Christianity. God speaks and it happens. God’s Word, God’s intention is always embodied, always enacted, always alive and active. God’s Word is not just heard or seen, God’s Word is demonstrated and experienced.

And today, Christmas Day, we are invited to enter into the full experience of this intervention again—to dare to wait at the fringes of the birth scene, knowing that it is not just a glimpse that is promised, but a close-up encounter, a real life relationship with the Creator of All, a real life experience with the greatest intervention of all, the very Wisdom/Word of God; to dare to take a step forward into the scene and marvel that our God chooses to be made vulnerable in order to communicate God’s very self with us; to dare to pick up the baby and nurse it and comfort it for that is God demonstrating the greatest Wisdom of all; and even more to dare to let that baby grow up, to teach and to heal, to love and to care, to laugh and to cry, to live and to die on a cross prepared for the One who knew what any real intervention would take to bring real change for a wonderful, damaged, redeemable Creation—“our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made [hu]man” for the sake of the whole Creation.

A Funny Kind of Good News

“So, with many other exhortations, he [John] proclaimed the good news to the people” (Luke 3:18). With exhortations like "You brood of vipers!” (v. 7) and “one who is more powerful … will baptise you with fire” (v. 16) and “His winnowing fork is in his hand… the chaff he will burn” (v. 17), John proclaimed the good news.

Now, I don’t know about you, but being addressed as a “brood of vipers” hardly sounds like “good news” or does it?

John’s preaching is not the namby-pamby platitudes of a preacher who wants only to be liked by his audience. John’s preaching is not the preaching of a minister who thinks that pastoral care is only about making people feel comfortable. John’s preaching is challenging and threatening. John’s preaching makes people feel decidedly uncomfortable; John’s preaching demands that people examine themselves; and John’s preaching threatens the status quo. And the Gospel of Luke says, John’s preaching was the “good news”. And maybe is the good news that we really need in a world where being comfortable is proclaimed as value for which to aim; where we get so caught up in examining others and finding fault, we neglect to face up to the realities of ourselves; where those asked to monitor our laws and our finances seem to be more concerned about making those things work just for them.

This good news challenges the powerful to use their power responsibly. It challenges the rich to use their resources for the good of the community. It challenges the financial monitors to act ethically.

And lest we think this good news is not for us. Let’s remember the riches we have, the power we have, the responsibility we have, in relation to many, many others—our families, our friends, the people we work or volunteer with, the billions of people in nations that have much less in terms of resource than we do in Australia. The thing is that even if we think we are acting responsibility, this good news asks us to think again, and to think harder, and to act even better. And essentially it makes that challenge in the context of community. So you may have the power to buy what you want and spend what you like, but is that what is the best thing for the community not just in which you live, but the community of the whole Creation? So you may have the power to make others acquiesce to your opinions, but is that what is the best thing for the community not just in which you live, but the community of the whole Creation? So, you have the power to demand what you like of others by force of the authoritative position you hold in a community (whether formally or informally), but is that what is the best thing for the community not just in which you live, but the community of the whole Creation? This good news is not news of individual rights and freedoms. It is good news about the common good. And for those who have power and money and position, that good news is threatening. And whether we like it or not, that means that good news is for us. It is for us who live in a wealthy nation. It is for us who are used to seeking our own way. It is for us who think we know and understand; and who believe we therefore have the right to dictate to others—not just individual others, but a whole community. This good news is for all, because it is for us.

The Gospel of Luke says the crowds flocked to John. For some reason, they were energised by his preaching. Maybe they really were from the poor and the downtrodden. Certainly, they were looking for a new freedom from the lives which were theirs. But what if they were really the middle classes, the ones who found themselves between rocks and hard places—neither very wealthy, nor very poor—the very place that we tend to see ourselves occupying. What if they flocked to John because they didn’t think the good news was them, but for others? What if they saw the good news as another way of getting what they wanted, of having what they felt entitled to, of telling others how manipulative and power-mongering they were? What if they were really just humans like us?

The good news is for all, not for them. The good news is for all, not for some. The good news is for us, not just for others. And this good news is challenging and threatening. This good news makes us feel decidedly uncomfortable. This good news demands that people examine themselves. This good news threatens our status quo.

It’s easy to jump on a bandwagon that appears to be in our interests. But we are being asked to jump on a bandwagon that, in times of many of the values of today’s world, is not our own interests. It will not make us rich. It will not bring other people under our control. It will not justify lifestyles of consumption. It will not justify claims to the rights of individuals to do what they like and to hell with others. This good news is not in our own interests. It is in the interests of the community of the whole Creation; and that is the reason it is for us—not that it justifies ourselves, but that it frees us from self-preoccupation; not that it frees us to operate as we like, but that it opens us to act for the common good; not that it allows us to use our power as we want, but that it asks us to use our power in the interests of others. This is the good news; and because it is good news for us, it is good news for all—good news for the whole of Creation.

“So, with many other exhortations, he [John] proclaimed the good news to the people” (Luke 3:18). It’s a funny kind of good news in the values of today’s world that demands more of us, rather than less; that curbs our power, rather than expands it; that challenges and questions us, rather than comforts us and leaves us complacent. But this is the good news of a Saviour who comes with a baptism of fire. And this is the good news that we say is for us! May it be so in this Advent season!

All Flesh Shall See the Salvation of God!

The “word of God came to John son of Zechariah” (Luke 3:2). John proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 3). It was just like the prophet Isaiah said: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" (vs 4-6)

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God”—all flesh, all humanity, all mortal beings, all material things, all physical existence, all Creation--“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

This is a grand vision—a big picture: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low…; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" (vs 5-6)

“All flesh shall see the salvation of God”—the deliverance of God; the redemption of God; the reconciliation of God—a process, not an event; an activity, not a completion—a grand vision of a grand course of action—a promise, a proclamation that everyone and everything will be involved in the very action of God.

John is caught up into God’s word, God’s action in the world, and John proclaims that that is the destiny for all of God’s Creation. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

This is what the prophet Isaiah proclaimed: “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:6) The mouth of the Lord has spoken and God’s speech is never just words. God’s words are living and active—God says and it happens; God speaks and it is God’s action; God expresses God’s self and it is the very nature of God.

This is what has been happening—the salvation of God—the process of God’s deliverance of a Creation made by God, loved by God, and in continual relationship with God. John proclaims the living word, the living action of God. And all flesh has been witnessing it, is witnessing it and will continue to witness it for it is God’s intention and God’s work and God’s nature poured out in and through Creation.

We are waiting for its completion; but, more importantly, we are involved in the process of its happening.

This process, this action is bigger than any idea of individualised salvation, of single creatures being brought closer to God. This promise, this revelation, is about what God is doing with and for and in the whole Creation. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

John invites his listeners into this bigger picture, into this broader understanding of God’s purposes for everything they are and everything they know.

But entering the vision, entering God’s vision, the grand vision proclaimed by God involves a profound word/action of our own—not a word/action to ensure our salvation (salvation is of God!); but a word/action that opens ourselves to the big picture—a word/action of humility; a word/action of responsibility; a word/action that indicates a change in our worldview, a change in our understanding of ourselves, of Creation and of God—an acknowledgement, a recognition that we do not see what God sees, and we do not understand how God acts, and we cannot determine how God works—an act of repentance, of metanoia, an act of changing our minds, in order that we might be open to catching a glimpse, just a small glimpse, of the mind of God—a word/action that makes it possible for us also to be witnesses to and proclaimers of the action of God; for us also to be proclaimers of the grand vision of John, son of Zechariah, and of Isaiah; a grand vision that is most fully and completely revealed in the very entry of God’s Word into God’s Creation in the person and work of Jesus. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

And John is proclaiming that God is about to make it as easy as it can be to catch that glimpse of God’s work--through the profound gift of Jesus; God’s personal entry into the Creation itself.

Now we sit on the other side of that profound revelation and the words of Isaiah, and of John, echo down the ages to find us still waiting, still looking, still hoping, still expecting something grand to happen; and still being asked to see that it is, that it is and has been happening, that it is and will continue to happen as the work of God goes on in and through Creation, in and for the sake of the whole Creation.

What does it take for us to see? What does it take for us to catch a glimpse, just a small glimpse, of what God is doing?

Let’s not look for the grand cataclysms, the spectacular apocalypses, the special effects end of the world. Let’s open our minds to a change. Let’s open our eyes for a different revelation. Let’s at least suspect that we may not understand it all. Let’s wait quietly and hopefully for a God who has been and is at work in our midst—a God who comes in vulnerability, not in triumph; a God who begs us to notice, not demands our attention; a God who enters our world in the pain of childbirth, and the wonder of a baby’s first cry. Let’s dare to open ourselves to the profound word/action of God--“All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”