Why the highest culture always dares to care for the destitute

If your like me you may have never been privileged to soak in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall, or read Shakespearean Sonnets to your wife while vacationing in the Swiss Alps, or taken your kids to experience the enchanting elegance of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake being performed at the Met, or attended a viewing of Michealangelo Antonio's L'Avventura at the Grand Theatre Lumire in Cannes, or marveled at Caravaggio's Death of the Virgin in the Louvre Musuem. This is the stuff high culture is made of. Breathing in these rousing works of art located in these venerable venues is something that I would love to experience one day.

Partly because of it's elitist heritage, high culture has garnered somewhat of a deservedly bad rap by mainstream consumers who perceive these highbrow works of art as ridiculously overpriced and insipidly inaccessible. Yet, as the poet T.S. Elliot noted in his classic work entitled Notes Toward the Definition of Culture both popular and high culture are necessary components of a thriving culture. We are living in a world which is rapidly transitioning to more egalitarian power structures. As a result, this is allowing for new minds and hearts to experience these spiritually enlightening creations that have passed the test of time and have been handed down from one generation to another. Fortunate pockets of this next cadre of children are experiencing early on in their little lives a genuine appreciation for high culture due to the classically based education they are inheriting. Globalization is also allowing the average American for the first time to be introduced to the best of the rest of what the world has to offer. Combine all these facts together witht the reality that we are finally looking outside of our insular navels of American and Western European culture and this creates the potential recipe for a cultural renaissance of seismic proportions.

From the perch I sit on this seems like an amazing day and age to drink in life, feast on the aesthetic brilliance of diverse cultural creations and ultimately be transformed as a result of these little foretastes of heaven. The Christ & Culture podcast that we are attempting to begin next month is predicated on this premise that as Calvin Miller puts it practice loving worthy things every day, till all you love is worthy of your practice. There is much to love and learn from high culture that is necessary for tasting God in ways one has never known. The Message of God's Eternal Word echoes this truth throughout its pages. From the first post-creation declaration thatit is very good� (or could be translated beautiful); to the rich Jewish culture that God ordained and the Jews cultivated and created throughout the Biblical narrative; to the fine form in which these exquisite words were placed on papyrus through the power of prose, poetry, parable and song; God has always been an advocate of thoughtful creativity.

Yet the pinnacle of all cultures is somewhere beyond the 100 billion stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy, somewhere beyond the estimated 200 billion galaxies that make up the known universe. It is a place where the Creator of all creators chose to leave; chose to be born into obscurity, poverty and strife; chose to go out of His way to live up to His given title of Suffering Servant by befriending impoverished outsiders, powerless untouchables and those with questionable reputations; and ultimately chose to identify authentic followers of Himself by whether or not they dared to care for the destitute (Matthew 25:31-46).

In a world where every morning the headlines of our local papers could read 30,000 destitute human beings died yesterday as a result of extreme poverty�; where millions struggle to fill their children's bellies, where little girls are daily sold into the demonic sex slave trade, where deadly diseases threaten to orphan an entire sub-continent and where little boys are stolen from their families to learn how to kill before they ever can read a book - the greatest of all cultures, the Artist above all artists says I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.�

The supreme culture of the heavenlies is inclusive not exclusive, inspires sacrifice not snobbery, produces humility not haughtiness and generates generous giving not limitless luxuries. Right now on planet earth, the battle between beauty and evil is being waged. There are millions of iconic images that deepen our internal understanding of Creator God but none more so than his compassion for the poor. If high culture or pop. culture or Christian sub-culture for that matter, does not produce an ever increasing level of holy compassion than these natural or man-made images become nothing more than iconic idols which we hide behind to disguise our true god of materialistic hedonism.

May the high culture of humanity be instruments of awe, mystery, and gratitude but may they also mobilize us to dare to care for those that Jesus most identifies with.

A fellow learner, Dave Tippit