Isaiah 60
The image of the ideal city, and especially the restored Jerusalem, is a common place in the Old Testament ,in the Psalms and especially in Isaiah where Chapter 60, which we heard this evening, is one of the longest and most powerful developments of the theme.
It moves from optimism to allegory, from the dawn light breaking into the black cloud of night, through the brightness of a new gleaming and commercial city back to perpetual light in timeless state. But the underlying idea remains restoration: the restoration of a real city to the restoration of a people to their God, and of all people to God. People are the subject of the opening lines- although they are actually addressed to Jerusalem (although never actually named Jerusalem and only once called Zion). The light that has come to Jerusalem is a magnet drawing people out of darkness like the pillar of fire led the escaping Israelites in the desert. Jerusalem has become a family or a clan drawing in its sons and daughters, but drawing too merchandise from afar by land- by camels- and by sea from as far away as Tarshish, which is southern Spain. The image of ships sailing in like a flock of doves is particularly vivid- their mainsails puffed out like a dove’s breast and their smaller sails like wings. The diaspora of fleeing refugees and impoverished slaves has been transformed into a lively inward traffic- people and goods flow in and the proud kings who destroyed the former Jerusalem are now the workmen rebuilding it. ‘The descendents of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you while those who despised you shall bow down to your feet’
The restoration is not only of material wealth: political power is also assumed as Jerusalem becomes a metropolis but more importantly there is a restoration of relations with God. God beautifies his city with wealth that flows in. The restoration of material wellbeing and the embellishment of God’s sanctuary will demonstrate God’s power- as their Redeemer, the Mighty one of Jacob. This new recognition of God’s place will be realised in the allegory of the city itself whose walls are Salvation and whose gates Praise, where Peace is the overseer and Righteousness the taskmaster.
Up to this point Isaiah’s vision has been exaggerated but not entirely fantastical: the imagery is most materialistic, lavish, rich but not wholly out of this world but as Isaiah imagines the sun no longer being the light by day nor the brightness of the moon the light by night- here the implication is surely the end of time. Day and night and the phases of the moon, our primary measures of time, cease to function and time stands still as we return to the imagery of light overcoming darkness for eternity.
Throughout there is an ambiguity in several levels- first in what tense is this vision? Hebrew has only two tenses: the perfect and imperfect and neither can be specifically present past or future. Equally orthodox Judaism did not, and I think still does not, recognise an afterlife so the concept of a “heavenly” Jerusalem is not located in another world we will experience after death. It has accordingly reality and an urgent relevance to the living. And yet, this temporal uncertainty is mirrored by uncertainty of place, whether Isaiah is talking about real or imagined worlds; to some extent it is clearly set in this world- quite precisely at Jerusalem and linked to real places. But on another level it is fantastical and allegorical, and finally surely eschatological- the end of time cannot be easily located in time or place in this world.
Isaiah’s vision shares these ambiguities with Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of heaven- that too is equivocally located in time and space, sometimes apparently here and now and sometimes after a second coming at the end of time. I doubt if this similarity is coincidental: as Jesus teaching and life- especially the Passion owe much to Isaiah and Isaiah’s visions. Images of the ideal city, amplified by the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven, have continued to appeal to the Christian imagination. The book of Revelation ends with a vision of the New Jerusalem which borrows heavily on Isaiah’s. In the middle Ages the cities of Rome and Jerusalem became magnets for pilgrimage; real places where one could get closer to God and have foretaste, and even an entry ticket to Heaven. From the Renaissance you may remember distant cities set on hills glimpsed through the window behind a seated Madonna, the landscape glowing with and ethereal and pellucid light or Piero della Francesca’s drawing of an ideal city, or the similar formal architectural background to Carpaccio’s charming stories where the mastery of perspective gives a spiritual charge to the work of man. These Renaissance cities are, as you would expect ideally humanist- not anti-divine but expressing the divine in human terms: man made in God’s image. There is in them an attempt to envisage Righteousness, Peace, Praise and Salvation in the marble, bricks and mortar.
Later city architecture and town planning has been used to celebrate and even embody rather more earthly ideals and ambitions as in the imperialist pretension of the Champs d’Elysee or our own Mall. The skyscrapers of the expanded modern city of London are not just efficient accommodation; they are also statements about the power of money and celebrations of wealth. These developments would be familiar to Isaiah; his vision as we heard contains a good deal of imperialism and commerce, but for Isaiah, these worldly ambitions are transformed by being inspired and underpinned by the Law; they express God’s omnipotence and glory, sustained by Peace and Righteousness. Can we say that of Canary Wharf or the Olympic Stadium?
Isaiah’s Jerusalem is magnet for wealth and people. So are modern cities. Dick Whittington hoped to find London paved with Gold, so do many immigrants who come to our city and the millions of the poor in the developing world building favelas or shanty towns on the ever expanding outskirts of the world’s largest cities. Isaiah might recognise these millions of sons and daughters seeking a home in their metropolis. He would recognise too the huge influx of wealth into cities: those ships breaching the waves like doves fuse into aeroplanes, and the camels into trucks. But I fear that in the extremes of wealth and poverty, in the violence, isolation and depression which characterise so many cities including our own, Isaiah would find it hard to discern Righteousness, Salvation, Peace and Praise.
Despite these depressed observations, I believe the idea of the city can still inspire us. For many, cities represent optimism; here is hope and ambition. These hopes and ambitions are of course largely materialistic (I suspect that those seeking spiritual satisfaction head to the countryside). But as we see in the development of Isaiah’s vision of an ideal Jerusalem, materialism may lead to a spiritual state. We are perhaps seeing this already in London where church going is growing and especially among those who are relatively recent arrivals , and mostly the better off.
Cities epitomise the ambiguity between material and the spiritual world; they seek to make money and satisfy the material needs of their growing population, but they also aspire to be symbols of higher civilisation (which essentially means city living) in the arts and the expression of civic and civilised values. This is an ambiguity- a no man’s land- in which the church is well placed to enter and exploit. This is not new: the church in London- and in many of the great cities in the UK and elsewhere, has taken the initiative in feeding those who come seeking bread and it has done so with soup kitchens and winter night shelters as well as offering the bread of life and cup of salvation. These initiatives realise, albeit in a pitifully small way, the Righteousness and Peace which guide Isaiah’s vision. In concentrating on the needs of humanity we shall build a divine city. So, I believe Isaiah’s vision can inspire us with that task; his Jerusalem is fantastical but not unimaginable, and we should try to imagine an eternal light breaking though the dark smog in Sao Paolo, Lima, Calcutta and even the depressed areas of London. Amen.