“Politics”, Andrew Breitbart once noted, “is downstream of culture.” Will the recent US election give us a mulligan from the political mistakes of the past four years and we might get another reprieve next October or, with luck, earlier? That is to give too much power to politics. The real energy is in the transformation of culture.But how is culture transformed? The glib, but accurate response is, “one person at a time.” And what exactly will the transformation look like? I think the answer to this question is tightly bound to the person whose birthday, for over 2,000 years, has been celebrated on December 25.However, although I count myself a Christian, my argument is from history and not the doctrines of any particular expression of faith.Know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed…. Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you (the religious leaders), or to him (God)? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”There is overwhelming evidence for the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth. It is not seriously in dispute. What is at issue are the well attested, if miraculous events of his life and the nature and truth of his resurrection which is equally well attested but more disputed. But for all the disputation, the fact remains that most of the world defines time by the year of Jesus’ birth however poorly we try to disguise it by the inane and illogical “common era”? (What was so common about the year 1 CE? And what event separated the “common era” from the “before common era”? Just askin'.)It is noteworthy that today’s most creative and productive nations accredit their civilizational success to a devotion, however tattered, to the principles and norms that Jesus introduced. If the cultures of nations have been changed by Jesus, might the changes to those nations have come one person at a time?Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain?And today the nations are raging. Wars in Ukraine. Wars in Armenia. Wars in Georgia. Wars in Africa. Wars in the Middle East. What are we to do about this violence? Is Trump to be our saviour?For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.Prince of Peace, eh? This from a guy who promised us wars and rumours of wars. But maybe the peace is also spread person to person and not by government fiat. Former White House Council, Chuck Colson used to say, “Salvation will not come on Airforce One.”“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”The route to an office job I once had took me past a group of homeless men who gathered for warmth every morning under the exhaust fan of a local restaurant. The routine resulted in familiarity and short conversations.“Dave, you guys are up at 7:15 every morning so why not just get a job so you can sit in the restaurant?”“Murray, you are going to your office where you will sit for eight, soul destroying hours. We, on the other hand, have the entire possibilities of the day open before us.” Dave was the poet of the group. We both laughed and I had to admit there was some logic to his view. Dave also told me that what most homeless people want is “to be seen.” A simple acknowledgment of their humanity, however destructive their lifestyle.For several years, I worked with others to offer weekly chapel services at a local jail. The inmates who attended were self-selected and the conversations were always instructive of a terrible reality about which I had no real knowledge. One inmate was to be released in a couple of weeks and when I asked him about his obvious anxiety, he said,“I have been in here for two years and the truth is, I am never so free as when I am in prison.”Everyone laughed and then the others said more soberly, “That is so true.”The inmates that I met understood Jesus' connection between truth and freedom at a level that I still don’t grasp.“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”In Peru’s Agrarian Reform of 1969, nine million hectares of land were expropriated from 15,000 landowners and given to the 370,000 workers of the once large haciendas. The newly distributed lands were individually owned in workers cooperatives which were destroyed within ten years. Enrique Mayer concluded that the reform was largely a failure but for one still prosperous cooperative that consciously organized itself around Jesus’ principles of life.“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”Especially during the Christmas season, we should be challenged to consider how we can improve our culture, periodically at the ballot box and continually in our daily interactions. A smile and thanks to a harried store clerk, a hello and eye contact with a homeless person, a donation to a food bank and the Salvation Army. The needs are obvious, and our choices are binary. Will we consciously see what is to be seen and respond? Or will we look away? Jesus was not a prophet of “the big one and done” but rather of the slow drip of a life transformed by continually infusing human interactions with… well... humanity.”If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”Have a very merry and merciful Christmas!
