The Dawn From on High Will Break Upon Us

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High,
    for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give his people knowledge of salvation
    by the forgiveness of their sins.
Because of the tender mercy of our God,
    the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace.

(Luke 1:76-79, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)

I’ve been thinking about Walter Brueggemann a lot in recent weeks.

Brueggemann had been on my mind even before his death earlier this month at the age of 92. His insights into Scripture have profoundly shaped my understanding of the church broadly speaking, and the Religious Society of Friends in particular, as “the avant-garde community that is formed in order to embrace and practice God’s abundance,” set against a world where the ruling classes hoard wealth and resources for themselves. I have come to embrace his framework for the prophetic imagination, the spirit that gives rise to the voice that reminds us we don’t need to accept things as they stand, that God has already promised us a better world—not in heaven, but here and now. 

In one of his last books, The Peculiar Dialect of Faith, Brueggemann cites Moses, addressing the people of Israel: “Not with our ancestors did YHWH make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us alive today.” (Deut 5:3) For many Jews and Christians and Friends of various orientations, that remains true to this day. We may disagree about what that covenant looks like in practice, but we tend to concur that if we can simply love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, good things will happen for everyone.  But can we learn to shake off the lie that “God helps those who help themselves,” and the other temptations of our dominant culture?

We can… if we have faith. Brueggeman describes gospel faith as “subversive, revolutionary, and anticipatory.” As an expression of gospel faith, the prophetic imagination shares in those qualities—helping us tune out the gods of this world and keeping us focused on the Beloved Community.

Luke’s introduction of John the Baptist explains how this works.

Even before John’s birth, his father anticipates his mission! “You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,” Zechariah sings, “to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” And when the people realize they have received that salvation, he says, they will “serve [God] without fear, in holiness and righteousness in his presence all our days.” (Luke 1:74-75) Don’t look at this as a quid pro quo, though: God doesn’t forgive sins as a reward for good behavior. No, God has already forgiven people’s sins and opened the gates to the Beloved Community. It remains up to the people to walk willingly through those gates.

Thanks to the seductive lies of the gods of this world, though, many people don’t believe a society like the Beloved Community can really exist. They can’t see another way of life beyond fighting over scarce resources, doing their best to make sure they’ve got more than other folks. They want respect and prestige and security, and those things come from money, don’t they? So they want money, as much of it as possible. And if that means other people have to do without, well, money can also buy you the ability not to have to see their suffering, not to give it any opportunity to nag at your conscience.

Early Quakers saw the world around them covered by the shadow of death. 

They saw themselves living under that shadow, until such time as a Spirit of Truth sent by God shone an Inward Light upon their souls and subverted that “reality.” As individual Friends experienced this revelatory moment, it forced them to recognize their sinful nature—the extent to which they had been living outside God’s covenant. But the Inward Light did not condemn; rather, it served as a beacon, guiding Friends’ feet into the way of peace. Violence has no place in the Beloved Community. When God provides amply for all, the perceived need to fight over resources vanishes. Instead, we choose—not just willingly, but gladly—to live into that abundance.

Once Friends came to know such a feeling for themselves, they wanted to share the good news with the rest of the world. For centuries, we’ve striven to give testimony through action as well as word—living demonstrations of the revolutionary dynamic of lives in alignment with Spirit.

I keep a copy of the Anabaptist Community Bible by my desk, and in the margins of this passage from Luke, I found a simple question: “How are we being called to prepare the way for God’s presence and work?” Whether or not you see Jesus behind the Inward Light, that query seems like a fruitful prompt for each of us to discern.