Just before Christmas last year, I was visiting Brisbane’s South Bank cultural precinct and stumbled into the end of year concert of the School of Hard Knocks. It was a wonderful occasion. Full of joy and humour, resounding song and moving poetry, it shared the lives and love of many of Brisbane’s homeless and disadvantaged people. This year’s concert is again at the State Library, at 2 pm on 16 December. Check it out if you are down that way. It will lift your spirits and encourage you. For in some ways it could be said to be an embodiment of the hope of the season of Advent which we begin today. In the face of the pain and struggle of our lives and world, all of us are encouraged by the promise of God’s coming salvation to start again. The invitation is there, in the closing words of our reading from Isaiah: ‘come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!’…
All of the Old Testament readings for the next four Sundays come from the book of Isaiah, and it is no wonder. For it is a remarkable compilation of extraordinary sayings which originally sought to point its audience to where God could be found in the destructive period of the great Hebrew Exile. There is no hiding from judgement of our human corruption and maltreatment of the poor and disadvantaged. Yet, even at the beginning of Isaiah, as we hear today, there is the amazing promise of a time, the ‘Day of Yahweh’, when God’s righteousness will be made manifest in a realm of restoration and peace. This is the heart of what we call the Advent Hope of the Christian Faith: the promise, which we share with Jews, of God’s deliverance, not only of our individual lives and souls, but of all aspects of our shared existence. For Christians, this is centred in the meaning of Christmas, which really does not make much sense without this much wider revelation. In preparing for Christmas, we are therefore called not simply to the birth of Jesus but to this deeper reality. We are invited not simply to celebrate the promise shining in Jesus Christ, but to live it out, walking in the light of the Lord.
This is part of what I saw and heard in the School of Hard Knocks. For one of the startling things said in today’s reading from Isaiah, is that the prophet ‘saw’ this ‘word’, or message, concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Think about it; the prophet ‘saw’ the ‘word’. How does someone see a ‘word’, do you think? It is a striking illustration for us that the ‘word’ we find in the Bible is not to be regarded like the words we ordinarily use, or find, for example, in a legal document or code of conduct. Sadly some Christians are tempted to treat the ‘word’, and words, we find in the Bible in that manner. They treat the biblical ‘word’ as if it were literal, or a law code. Yet the vision in today’s passage from Isaiah, as in other parts of the Bible, is clearly not about being literal but about calling us to share in the imagination of God. The prophet, like us, cannot literally see the promise of peace and righteousness. Yet, with God’s Spirit, he can imagine it and thereby help it come into being. It is not a foregone conclusion, as if it were a done deal without human participation. For biblical prophecy, as the word ‘prophecy itself tells us linguistically, is not so much a fore-telling, as it is a forth-telling. It is more a proclamation than a prediction: a proclamation, a telling forth, of what God intends and will bring into being; and a proclamation of what we too are invited to bring forth in our faith and lives.
Seeing the ‘word’ of hope and promise, and walking in its light: theologically, that is part of what we can see in the School of Hard Knocks’. For the members of the School have many reasons to lack hope and not walk in light. Many have suffered abuse and violence. Many are homeless or otherwise disadvantaged. All are poor and struggling in various ways. Yet, with the support of the organisation of the School of Hard Knocks, they are no longer wholly crushed by their own experience of destruction and exile. Bit by bit they can find some peace and restoration. To see and hear them is to see the ‘word’ of peace and restoration coming alive, to be touched by that peace and restoration for oneself, and to be empowered to help make that peace and restoration more real for others too.
In a sense, the School of Hard Knocks is a kind of prophetic sign and witness. It grew out of the Choir of Hard Knocks, founded by the wonderful Australian choir conductor, opera singer and voice teacher Jonathon Welch. It is certainly a terrific inspiration. For it encourages us, as Christians, can learn its lessons too, as part of our Advent journey. Despite our past and present, our failings, our pain and struggles, our hard knocks, can we believe in, and live out, the hope and promise offered to us? Can we, like the prophet Isaiah, see, and act, on the ‘word’ given to us? Can we share in God’s re-imagining of our lives and world, and let that vision be born in us?
At this time of year, it is possible to be weary and downcast, even in the face of precipitate and imminent festive jollity. In contrast, our Advent themes offer us both a welcome jolt of reality and also a marvelous injection of imagination and hope. They call us to wake up, rub our tired and sleepy eyes, and see the ‘word’ of God made real among us. They inspire us to walk in that light and live it out. For, as the great early church theologian Augustine of Hippo put it, as Christians, as a Church community together, we are not a gathering of perfected saints. We are rather a school for sinners, for the stumbling as well as the striving. What matters is what we are looking at and whether we are open to God’s grace. In other words, we are called ourselves to be a School of Hard Knocks, and of Eternal Hope and re-imagination. May it be so: in the Name of Jesus, who bore the hard knocks and showed us the Way, in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
by Jo Inkpin, for Advent Sunday, Year B, Sunday 27 November 2016
This is part of what I saw and heard in the School of Hard Knocks. For one of the startling things said in today’s reading from Isaiah, is that the prophet ‘saw’ this ‘word’, or message, concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Think about it; the prophet ‘saw’ the ‘word’. How does someone see a ‘word’, do you think? It is a striking illustration for us that the ‘word’ we find in the Bible is not to be regarded like the words we ordinarily use, or find, for example, in a legal document or code of conduct. Sadly some Christians are tempted to treat the ‘word’, and words, we find in the Bible in that manner. They treat the biblical ‘word’ as if it were literal, or a law code. Yet the vision in today’s passage from Isaiah, as in other parts of the Bible, is clearly not about being literal but about calling us to share in the imagination of God. The prophet, like us, cannot literally see the promise of peace and righteousness. Yet, with God’s Spirit, he can imagine it and thereby help it come into being. It is not a foregone conclusion, as if it were a done deal without human participation. For biblical prophecy, as the word ‘prophecy itself tells us linguistically, is not so much a fore-telling, as it is a forth-telling. It is more a proclamation than a prediction: a proclamation, a telling forth, of what God intends and will bring into being; and a proclamation of what we too are invited to bring forth in our faith and lives.
Seeing the ‘word’ of hope and promise, and walking in its light: theologically, that is part of what we can see in the School of Hard Knocks’. For the members of the School have many reasons to lack hope and not walk in light. Many have suffered abuse and violence. Many are homeless or otherwise disadvantaged. All are poor and struggling in various ways. Yet, with the support of the organisation of the School of Hard Knocks, they are no longer wholly crushed by their own experience of destruction and exile. Bit by bit they can find some peace and restoration. To see and hear them is to see the ‘word’ of peace and restoration coming alive, to be touched by that peace and restoration for oneself, and to be empowered to help make that peace and restoration more real for others too.
In a sense, the School of Hard Knocks is a kind of prophetic sign and witness. It grew out of the Choir of Hard Knocks, founded by the wonderful Australian choir conductor, opera singer and voice teacher Jonathon Welch. It is certainly a terrific inspiration. For it encourages us, as Christians, can learn its lessons too, as part of our Advent journey. Despite our past and present, our failings, our pain and struggles, our hard knocks, can we believe in, and live out, the hope and promise offered to us? Can we, like the prophet Isaiah, see, and act, on the ‘word’ given to us? Can we share in God’s re-imagining of our lives and world, and let that vision be born in us?
At this time of year, it is possible to be weary and downcast, even in the face of precipitate and imminent festive jollity. In contrast, our Advent themes offer us both a welcome jolt of reality and also a marvelous injection of imagination and hope. They call us to wake up, rub our tired and sleepy eyes, and see the ‘word’ of God made real among us. They inspire us to walk in that light and live it out. For, as the great early church theologian Augustine of Hippo put it, as Christians, as a Church community together, we are not a gathering of perfected saints. We are rather a school for sinners, for the stumbling as well as the striving. What matters is what we are looking at and whether we are open to God’s grace. In other words, we are called ourselves to be a School of Hard Knocks, and of Eternal Hope and re-imagination. May it be so: in the Name of Jesus, who bore the hard knocks and showed us the Way, in the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
by Jo Inkpin, for Advent Sunday, Year B, Sunday 27 November 2016
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