by Brian Walsh

It didn’t make any sense. What was a suburban 16-year-old doing in the downtown basement of a soup kitchen for Toronto’s poorest residents? The kid wasn’t looking for soup, and he certainly wasn’t cruising the main drag with the intent of meeting, let alone serving, homeless men and women.

The date was 1969 and the place was a coffeehouse in the dingy underbelly of Yonge Street Mission. I was the kid. I found myself in this setting drinking bad coffee and listening to some decent music. By the late 1960s, a mission that had been established to reach out to the poor and destitute of Toronto found itself in the middle of a youth culture gravitating toward the inner city, looking for sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So they decided to offer up coffee, Jesus, and folk music.

After a few months of hanging around this place I fell in love with all three, but not in that order. I am a follower of Jesus today with a love for good music and a distinct distaste for bad coffee (though I love the good stuff) because of the way in which God worked through that urban ministry in the core of Toronto.

When we think of “urban ministry” we tend to think of food banks, homeless shelters, after-school programs for kids who are disadvantaged, community development initiatives, and other ways to minister among our poorest neighbors in the city. All of these are essential. But Yonge Street Mission, way back in 1969, decided to throw a coffeehouse and music into the mix. This was not an initiative to reach out to the folks living on the street who were their primary clientele back then, but to reach another rising population in their neighborhood—wandering and lost suburban kids like me.

From Soup Kitchen to Youth Ministry and More

At first the music was likely just an attraction—something to get kids into the space so that more decidedly evangelistic conversations could take place. But the music became more and more important. Sure, it was Peter, Paul, and Mary stuff with a Christian twist, but there was a quality and an integrity to what those Christian musicians were doing on that little stage. Eventually, as this ministry grew, other arts and other musical styles became important. Street festivals began to feature some straight-up rock and roll. The mission made art supplies available, and kids would start to paint, draw, and do sculpture.

And so a soup kitchen ministry evolved into a youth ministry (more and more characterized by street youth, not just kids hanging out downtown on the weekends), and then an arts ministry. Pretty soon they were training kids in the culinary arts and doing catering as well. Since then, this particular urban ministry has branched out into housing, social enterprises, a church, financial services, health clinics, computer training, and many other ways to seek the welfare of the city and the redemption of broken lives.

Looking for Home

That’s the way it goes in urban ministry: one thing leads to another. And it is the city itself that sets the agenda. Changing demographics, different social and economic needs, and cultural change call forth different dimensions of what it means to be the body of Christ in the city.

Without the body of Christ taking the city seriously, indeed, without the body of Christ loving the city and committing itself to seeking the peace of the city, I don’t know if I would be a follower of Jesus today. So my debt to urban ministry is, quite literally, eternal.

Truth be known, I wasn’t downtown looking for sex, drugs, or even rock and roll. Something else was going on. For me, the boring sameness of high school in the suburbs met the vibrant cultural scene of the inner city and didn’t stand a chance. The city sparked my imagination. There was a vitality downtown—not unrelated to a burgeoning countercultural movement—that seemed to catch the spirit of the times.

But there was something even deeper behind this cultural attraction. When it comes right down to it, I was looking for meaning, for a sense of identity and purpose. At the deepest level I was looking for a place to call home. And I found my way home in the basement of a soup kitchen in the inner city of Toronto. You see, Jesus was serving the coffee, playing the guitar, and hanging out with the kids who came in. And the more I looked, the more it became clear to me that Jesus was also to be found in the men who were homeless and the struggling moms on welfare who came to this place every day of the week. In their company, I came home to Jesus. And my discipleship over these years has never strayed too far from urban ministry.

Jesus Is There

Almost all the people I know who are deeply involved in urban ministry tell me that they came into this ministry to bring Jesus to the city—but once they deeply entered into the city, they found out that he was already there. Jesus was already there in the alleyways with crack addicts; he was under the bridges with people who are homeless; he was walking the streets with workers in the sex trade. He was already there.

But he’s also there in other ways. The architect who designs houses for folks who are homeless and people with severe disabilities looks like Jesus. The playwright who produces a powerful story of pain and redemption—there’s Jesus again. The local gardener developing community gardens in the city—well, Jesus has been confused with a gardener before. The lawyer defending the rights of refugees and illegal migrants—wasn’t Jesus a refugee once, the child of migrant laborers? The politician who seeks to transform the city into a place of hospitality and justice—isn’t that a vision not far from the kingdom of God? The community activists or church members who step into the breach when tensions run high and things get violent—kind of looks like bearing a cross, doesn’t it? The local church as a place of refuge, celebration, and spiritual identity—there’s the body of Christ.

Wherever Jesus is in the city, there is urban ministry. And it seems to me that such ministry has at least five areas of focus. Let’s call them ministries of justice, imagination, restoration, reconciliation, and renewal.

Ministries of justice. Urban ministry has no grounding unless it is a ministry of justice that reaches out to the poorest of the poor. That’s where it all begins. That dingy little coffeehouse back in 1969 had its deepest integrity because that Christian community first served the needs of men and women who were homeless. Those folks had priority, and I understood that if I were to throw in my lot with Jesus, then I was signing on to a ministry to neighbors who I had quite decidedly ignored so far in my life. If there is no such street-level dimension to urban ministry, then it is likely a ministry to the urban rich that unwittingly legitimizes gentrification and the continued marginalization of people who are poor.

Any ministry rooted in the Nazareth Manifesto of Jesus in Luke 4 is a ministry of good news for people in poverty. Such good news in urban ministry includes political advocacy, food ministry, community development, housing, shelters, social and economic enterprises, harm reduction, aboriginal ministry, addiction rehabilitation, and much more. Blessed are the poor, Jesus said, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Urban ministry is a ministry of justice.

Ministries of imagination. That coffeehouse had music. And before long, the young people who frequented the place were creating art together. Not surprising, really. Many of us were looking for cultural vitality, something to spark our starved imaginations.

Culture is rooted in the imagination, and cities are at the heart of the shaping of cultural imagination—whether in fashion, architecture, advertising, culinary arts, fine arts, film, drama, dance, or music. Vibrant urban ministry recognizes the importance of the imagination and is committed to both engaging in imaginative expressions of the city and shaping a Christian imagination.

Maybe that is why ministries of justice always seem to end up with an arts dimension. One urban ministry spawns a theatre group, another runs an arts ministry among street-involved youth, another invites men and women who are homeless to paint or to write out of their experiences of pain and their deepest longings and hopes.

The church also wants to enjoy, celebrate, and engage the diverse expressions of imagination at the heart of urban life through film festivals, concerts, drama, dance, and the fine arts. And so urban ministry finds itself producing public forums on faith and film during the local film festival, sponsoring various kinds of arts events, and encouraging local arts initiatives. Urban ministry is a ministry of imagination.

Ministries of restoration. There isn’t much point to urban ministry if the city is ecologically unsustainable. Insofar as the restoration of all of creation is at the heart of the biblical story, so also does “seeking the peace of the city” require a ministry of ecological restoration. Urban ministry is a ministry of urban homemaking, and therefore it strives to make the city a place of sustainable habitation for both rich and poor. Such a ministry includes encouraging green churches, local urban gardening (including on church property), and advocacy for political policy and economic practices that foster sustainable and accessible transportation systems, waste management, green spaces, and much more. Urban ministry finds itself an ally with local initiatives for building sustainable cities. It is a ministry of restoration.

Ministries of reconciliation. In biblical faith, the city is to be a place of safety and refuge, but invariably it ends up being a site of threat and exclusion. In contrast to the vision of the New Jerusalem, where all are welcome and the gates are always open, there is Babylon, where there is nothing but violence and oppression. The prophets name the violence of economic structures that leave most people living in poverty while the few enjoy the opulence of large homes and rich foods. And violence begets violence.

From the “not in my backyard” discrimination against those who are poor and vulnerable, to assaults on the kinds of social, ecological, transportation, and educational programs that make our cities vibrant, to the violence of our city streets, the city cries out for the church to engage in ministries of reconciliation that bring communities together and seek the peace of the city. Through processes of restorative justice, advocacy, and community development, urban ministry is a ministry of reconciliation.

Ministries of renewal. The body of Christ in the city—that’s what urban ministry is all about. But if the church is absent, disconnected, or preoccupied with its own survival rather than its call to mission, then there can be no vibrant urban ministry. An identity as kingdom communities is foundational to revitalizing the church in the city through church planting, church “reboots,” intentional communities, and parish renewal ministries.

Ministries of justice, imagination, restoration, and reconciliation flow out of the life of renewed parishes in particular neighborhoods and are also instrumental in the renewal of those very parishes. It goes both ways. We need renewed urban churches to spawn and sustain a comprehensive vision of urban ministry, but struggling churches that enter into ministries of justice, imagination, restoration and reconciliation will experience new vibrancy. You don’t just sit and wait for the Spirit to renew your church. Rather, you start living as a Spirit-led church in the midst of the city, and in so doing, you find that the Spirit is renewing your church.

I have a plaque on my wall. It reads: “Yonge Street Mission celebrates with Brian Walsh Forty Years of Christian Discipleship.” It is a gift that I prize very highly. You see, I came to the city looking for home. And I found it.

God loves the city. The Word took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood. And when Jesus is in the neighborhood, people get to come home.

My friend Brian Walsh will be doing a presentation drawing on his recent book on the singer-songwriter, rock guitarist and road warrior Bruce Cockburn at the renowned Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing this week.  Later, Mr. Cockburn will be performing, preceded by an interview with Walsh.  In honor of this remarkable bit of interaction and collaboration, and with a big hat tip to all involved at Calvin College, I offer this long rumination on the music of Bruce Cockburn, the writing of Brian Walsh, and this new book that explores how Cockburn’s work can inspire a more fruitful, faithful Christian imagination.  It’s a great book and means a lot to me, as you will see.

When Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination by Brian J. Walsh (Brazos; $18.99) hit the bookstore shelves in late fall I did a brief review, suggesting it was a book I adored, had read (in an early manuscript version) and that I would write about more thoroughly.

When we were doing our Hearts & Minds Best Books of 2011 announcements, we awarded it as one of the year’s best.

In fact, I said it was one of the year’s books that made me the happiest.  I had hoped others might find that intriguing, and that BookNotes readers would order it.  Some did, but others, I’m afraid, didn’t realize just how important this remarkable book really is.  I’m not alone, though, in insisting that this is a book that is well worth your hard-earned coin.  I smile in agreement when Brian McLaren says “I savored every page of this book.”   And I agree with Marva Dawn’s enthusiastic assertion: “You need to read this book!”

Here is my heart-felt two part longer review of Kicking at the Darkness by Brian Walsh.  The first essay is a rambling bit of my own story, why I found Cockburn so important decades ago, and how Walsh has been a writer whose Biblical insights about worldview and the prophetic imagination have influenced me greatly.  Granted, my remarks are a bit impressionistic and, insofar as it is just a little bit of my little story, it may not be that interesting to you.

Still, I hope you give it a read—you may better understand why I write about many of the themes we pursue here, the sorts of books we commend, the authors we most appreciate.  The confluence of evangelical faith, a reformational worldview, how Christian discipleship demands cultural engagement, our interest in the arts, and the really important influence of pop music form the backdrop as I tell about Bruce Cockburn.  I’ve said for decades that Cockburn is in my top two or three all-time favorite recording artists, so I hope you’ll read my odd little overview.

Part Two is a bit more focused, describing the structure and themes of the book.  In my first essay, actually, I end with three reasons why you should read Kicking at the Darkness.  If this intrigues you, or you are willing to trust me, order it from us asap.  If you want a bit more explanation of where Walsh goes with all this, read my summary in Part Two.  I am (relatively) brief, there, and it is no substitute for taking in Walsh’s insight, good writing, powerful Bible lessons, and his seriously imaginative take on Cockburn’s seriously imaginative artistic vision.  Enjoy.

Click here to read the full review

(We’ve sat in Easter Saturday for three weeks now. Not a bad thing to do considering how quickly we want to get past the horror of Good Friday. Maybe it is time for us to now proclaim the resurrection. Because without the resurrection, there is no remixing of the empire. This is my Wine Before Breakfast meditation on the Road to Emmaus story in Luke 24.13-35)

It wasn’t surprising that they had decided to leave the city.
Jerusalem had again failed to live up to its name.

Bloodshed, not peace, had been raining in this city for years,
and the last couple of days had been just more of the same.

Another round of arrests,
more beatings and corrupt trials,
another group of crucifixions,
more violence in the police state,
yet another repression of anything that could be a threat to the city
and its religious, political and economic elite.

This city that had held their hopes and dreams,
this city that had been the bearer of the promises,
this city where they had hoped to see the redemption of Israel,
this city where they had longed to see streets for dwelling,
justice in the gates,
jubilee in the land,
the protection of orphans, widows and strangers,
refuge for the vulnerable;
this city that they had hoped would be the capitol for the Kingdom of God,
… this city had failed them again.

So they made their way out of the city in order to go to a village.
Any hope for urban renewal had been dashed.

They left the city because the one in whom they had put their hope,
the one who had come into this city with such fanfare just a week earlier,
the one who had proclaimed a vision that resonated so deeply with the promises,
the one who had said that Jubilee was at hand,
the one who had come to clean house
and to establish nothing less than the Kingdom of God …
that one, had been left hanging on a cross on Friday.

And now the women were telling stories of a missing body.

No wonder they left town.
There was nothing to keep them there.
It was all too much.
Disappointment, shattered dreams, and now the indignity of a stolen body.
Time to get the hell out of Jerusalem,
maybe to try to get the hell of Jerusalem out of their systems.

Jerusalem had become Babylon and Babylon it would remain.
It was just another round in the losing fight,
out along the great divide tonight.

They drank their fill and still thirst for more,
asking if there’s no kingdom, what is this hunger for?

They had lifted up their prayers against the odds
and  now fear that the silence is the voice of God.

But it was into that silence that the voice spoke.

“What are you talking about?”

They stopped dead in their tracks.
The question itself had dumbfounded them,
froze them to the spot on the road where it was asked.

“What are we talking about?
Are you the only stranger around Jerusalem who hasn’t heard the news?”

“What news?” the stranger asked.

“The news of Jesus of Nazareth,
the news of this prophet of mighty power and liberating teachings,
the news of how the chief priests handed him over to the Romans
- to the Romans! -
and they crucified him.
And we had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel,
we had hoped that the promises would have come to pass,
we had hoped that Jerusalem would be restored.
And to make it worse, the body is now gone.”

“You really don’t get it do you?” the stranger replied.
“You don’t understand that it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory.”
Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them the things about himself in the scriptures.

Beginning with Moses and the prophets he interpreted to them the things about himself in the scriptures.

That would have been the Bible study of all Bible studies.

Their hopes have been demolished because the story
has not turned out the way that they thought it would.

So he retells the story to help them to see
that this is exactly where this story had been going for a very, very long time.

It was necessary that this story would go to a cross,
it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things,
because this is what this story has always been about.

From the very beginning when God made covenant with a violent partner,
this was going to be a story of suffering – divine suffering.

By entering into covenant,
God made the choice to suffer because of the violence of humanity,
indeed, to suffer from the very violence that has been at the foundation
of human city-building.

By entering into covenant,
God made the choice to suffer with his people
when they were subjected to the violence the city-building projects
of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and even Israel’s own kings.

By entering into covenant,
God made the choice to suffer for his people
as a servant who defeats the violence of evil by bearing it,
allowing the fury and violence of the city to expend itself on his very body.

The dream for the city might be one of shalom,
but the reality continues to be one of violence.
And what the cross tells us is that the evil of violence
cannot be defeated on its own terms.

The city of God will not be achieved
through a battle of strength against strength,
enmity against enmity,
power against power.
Any city erected on such strength, enmity and power
will just repeat the sad story of Jerusalem/Babylon all over again.

No, the New Jerusalem,
that better city that we seek,
that city of refuge,
that city of safety and hospitality,
that city of justice and restoration,
that restored city of shalom,
that city where God will dwell,
is a city built on the foundations of suffering love,
or it is not built at all.

Something like this, I think, is the story
that Jesus told those disciples on the road to Emmaus.
It is this story that makes sense out of the devastating events of the last couple of days.
It is this story that makes sense out of a Messiah hanging on a cross.

But it is not what opened the eyes of these two dejected and disappointed disciples.

The retelling of the story was essential,
because only in hearing the story anew as a story of suffering,
could the story be opened up again and hope could be reborn.

But it took more than a story,
it took more than a good sermon,
to open their eyes to the reality of resurrection in their very midst.

For that, they needed to break bread with Jesus.

The city that we long for is not a city of mere words.
The city that we long for is rooted in a story,
but that story must be enacted if it is to be true.

And so Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them.
Then, and only then, were their eyes opened.
And that is all that was needed.
A resurrection appearance in which there is a telling of the story
and the breaking of bread.
Word and sacrament.
That’s all that was needed.

So Jesus slips away.

And recognizing that it was Jesus who had been with them,
confessing that their hearts had been burning when he
retold the story to them on the road,
these two dejected, defeated and disappointed disciples,
take to the road again …
back to the city.

Back to the city of death with news of life,
back to the city of disappointment with hope,
back to the city of bloodshed with news of shalom,
back to the city of crucifixion with the reality of resurrection.

My beloved sisters and brothers,
every week we have gathered in this chapel
to tell this story and to break the bread.
Every week we have gathered around the word,
and often enough, our hearts have burned inside us.
Every week we have enacted this story with bread and wine,
and often enough we have recognized the risen one in this sacrament.

We have spent a year together reflecting deeply on a biblical understanding of the city,
a biblical urban imagination,
a vision for an urban ministry that encompasses us all.

This is our story, this is our song.

And because of Easter,
because the stone was rolled away,
because the tomb was empty,
because evil had done its worse but could not hold Jesus down,
because of the resurrection,
the risen one is in our midst,
hope has broken through despair,
life has conquered death,
and the New Jerusalem, that restored and renewed city of shalom,
is a sure hope, and a present reality.

Welcome home. Welcome to the City of God.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

Practice resurrection.

by Brian Walsh

The pilgrims on the Jericho road always sang the same song as they made their way to Jerusalem on the first day of Passover Week.

They always sang Psalm 118.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his steadfast love endures forever.”

And when they got to the end of the Psalm they would sing,
“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

And they would add in “Hosanna, Hosanna” “Save us, come and save.”

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – to save!

And these were, of course, revolutionary words in the context of the Roman empire, especially at the beginning of Passover Week.

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, to save” means “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord to release us from imperial bondage, to set us free from the repression of the empire.”

And it was clear from the singing of this psalm precisely what kind of salvation these folks had in mind.

Earlier in the psalm the pilgrims would have sung:

All nations surrounded me:
in the name of the Lord I cut them off.
They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off.
They surrounded me like bees;
they blazed like a fire of thorns;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off.

And so when they sang “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” it is clear that they are singing “Blessed is the one who cuts off the nations, defeats the nations, destroys the nations in the name of the Lord.”

And they sang this song to the one riding on the foal of a donkey because they saw in him the coming of the kingdom of David, coming, indeed, into the City of David, to reclaim Jerusalem, the City of Peace, as the City of God.

Jerusalem had never lived up to its name. This city had never been a “Rain of Peace.”
Rather, the streets of Jerusalem knew more of the flowing of blood than the gentle rains of shalom.

For these pilgrims it was time for Jerusalem to live up to its name, but there would need to be some more blood before that could happen.

If the kingdom was at hand for this city, then it would have to be bought with the price of blood – the blood of our oppressors, the blood of the nations who do not know God!

That’s what those folks were singing on that Sunday afternoon coming down the Jericho road.

And Jesus takes their hopes and longings,
he takes their kingdom enthusiasm
and vision of a liberated Jerusalem,
and turns it all on its head.

If Jerusalem is to be the City of God, the City of the Great King,
then both the king and God need to move in.

But when Jesus, this recently heralded king walks into the temple,
he kicks over the furniture and exclaims,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations,
but you have made it into a den of robbers.”

And by bringing together Jeremiah’s sermon against the temple with Isaiah’s vision of a house of prayer for all the nations, Jesus undermined precisely the vision of violent destruction of the nations hoped for in Psalm 118.

Jerusalem will not be the City of God because God will no longer live in a Temple of exclusion and privilege.

And then when the religious elite ask him, “by what authority do you do these things?” he tells them the parable of the vineyard.

By what authority do I do these things?
By the authority of the son of the vineyard owner,
by the authority of the one who is killed by the tenants of the vineyard.

And then he quotes from the very Psalm that the pilgrims had been singing, but he quotes a line in the psalm that in fact subverts the very meaning that they had invested in this psalm.

Instead of saying, “I do these things as the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” he says, “Have you not read this scripture,

‘The stones the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?”

By what authority do I do these things?
By the authority of the cornerstone that is rejected.
I am the rejected one.

There is a city to be built
– a city of shalom,
and there is a Temple to be constructed
– a place of divine presence and forgiveness, a house of prayer for all nations,
and it will be built upon the foundation that you have rejected.

So they plot to kill him.

This man is a threat to the peace of the city.

He is a threat to the peace of a city that has never known peace.

Jerusalem is the city of the great king,
and so it is that the pilgrims were also reported to have sung,
“blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David,”
indeed, “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”

If Jerusalem is to be restored as the city of the great king, then the king must return to claim his throne.

And so it is that the trial hangs on whether Jesus claims to be the king or not.

Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?
Are you the King of the Jews?
What do you want me to do with the man you call “king of the Jews?”

Crucify him!!

And so on the cross they put a sign above his head that read,
“King of the Jews.”

The irony is bitter.

A king hanging on a cross.

A crucified king.

Jerusalem can for a time experience the peace evoked by its name,
a peace assured by its Roman overlords,
the peace of the cross,
as an other trouble maker is dispatched to his death,
hanging on a cross outside of the city.

If there is to be a king who will restore this city,
then he will be installed on the Temple mount,
he will be installed on Mount Zion.

Jesus, however, is enthroned outside of the city,
on another hill,
not Zion but Golgotha, the place of the skull.

But there is a clue in the story as to what all of this might mean.

There is a clue in the story that indicates the kind of king that this crucified one is,
and the kind of kingdom, the kind of city, that he might bring in his wake.

While Jesus was dismissive of most of the religious leaders who argued with him during Holy Week, there was one scribe who asked a question and got a straight answer.

“Teacher,” the scribe asked, “Which commandment is first of all?”

And Jesus recognized an honesty in this question, rather than a trick, so he answered the same way that any child would have answered:

Hear O Israel;
the Lord our God,
the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord  your God
with all your heart,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

And though the scribe only asked for the commandment that is first of all, Jesus went on and added,

And the second is this: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

And then, rather than debating with Jesus, the scribe agreed with him and added that such love is much more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.

For Jesus, love trumps all. Love wins.

And this scribe understands the truth of this and also understands that if love wins, then all other religious observances and practices are secondary to such love.

So Jesus says, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”

The pilgrims on  palm Sunday had an enthusiasm for the kingdom of David, but they were far from the Kingdom of God.

They had a vision for the violent establishment of a liberated Jerusalem, but they were far from the City of God that Jesus brings.

After the U2 album “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” was released, an inteviewer asked Bono, “how do you dismantle and atomic bomb?” And Bono replied, “with love, with love.”

How do you dismantle the city of violence, dethrone principalities and powers, disarm the empire and usher in a Jerusalem that will live up to its name? With love, my dear friends. With love.

The love of a king enthroned on a cross.

No wonder the centurian said, “Truly, this man was God’s son.”

by Brian Walsh

Dear friends:

We have spent the last year at Wine Before Breakfast looking for a better city.

It all began with the urban contrast of all urban contrasts:
the fall of Babylon and the descending of the New Jerusalem.

The city of man meets the city of God.

The imperial regime of luxurious wealth
built on the solid foundation of oppression and idolatry

meets a city of radical hospitality, healing and joy
built on the solid foundation of the homecoming God.

Babylon and Jerusalem.
The contrast echoes throughout the biblical story.

And they find deep resonance in our own urban experiences.

But the contrast that is stark at the end of the story,
is much more ambiguous in the midst of the tale.

At some points we are called to seek the peace of Babylon.
And at other times Jerusalem starts to look suspiciously like Babylon.

Jerusalem, the “Rain of Peace,” seldom lives up to its name.

And this week of all weeks,
this Holy Week that is at the very heart of any Christian faith,
is all about a Jerusalem that rains blood, not peace.
It is all about Jerusalem not living up to its name.

We seek a better city.

Maybe even a city of refuge.
A city where there would no longer be the sound of weeping,
or the cry of distress;
where infant mortality would be unheard of
and old folks would live full and rich lives;
where folks would build houses
and inhabit them;
where they would plant gardens
and have community feasts;

where people would have fulfilling labour
and child protection agencies would be irrelevant.

A restored city of shalom,
where there would be no homeless neighbours,
where people would no longer need to numb themselves
with cheap wine,
where the vulnerable and broken would be held in love
and find their refuge in a community of justice.

But that is not the city that Jesus entered on Palm Sunday so long ago.

Carl Daw Jr.’s Dakota inspired hymn “Into Jerusalem Jesus Rode” understands this well:

Into Jerusalem Jesus rode,
triumphant king acclaimed;
palm branches spread to honor his way
garments laid down as tokens of praise;
shouts of “Hosanna” surged through the throng
into Jerusalem.

Maybe it looked hopeful when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey.

But he knew what was up.
He knew what kind of city this was.

Within Jerusalem Jesus stood,
masquerade king reviled;
thorns made a crown (grim satire of truth),
robe like a wound thrown over his back;
echoes of “Crucify” filled the air
within Jerusalem.

From “Hosanna” to “Crucify!” That is the story of this week.
That is our story.

Outside Jerusalem Jesus hung,
crucified King despised;
wood formed a cross suspending his life;
soldiers cast lots to deal out his clothes;
his lonely cries: “My God”;”It is done,”
outside Jerusalem.

Into.
Within.
Outside.

Rode.
Stood.
Hung.

So much for Jerusalem being the City of God.

Death in the city.
The death of the Son of God.

And yet …

And yet, there is no hope of a New Jerusalem,
there is no ‘better city’
there is no fulfillment of our deepest urban dreams,
without this path of into, within, outside;
without this story of rode, stood, hung.

The city is steeped in violence.

From Babel to Sodom to Jericho to Jerusalem
to Babylon and to Jerusalem again,
the city is steeped in violence.

And at the heart of biblical faith,
at the very denouement of the story,
is a path that goes into this city,
to stand for trial, beating and humility,
and ultimately be taken outside of that city to hang on a cross and die.

There is no restored city,
no city that rains peace,
no city of joyful homecoming,
no New Jerusalem,
that does not go through the violent streets of the old Jerusalem,
that does not go to the cross outside of the city.

And so this week we return to Jerusalem.
It’s called “Holy Week” for good reason.
If you mark time, then this week is the holiest of all weeks.

Jesus went into Jerusalem,
stood within that city,
and hung on a cross outside of city walls.

We are called to go there with him.

Holy Week is not optional, my friends.
If you want to follow Jesus,
if you want to take discipleship seriously,
if you really long for a better city,
then to Jerusalem you must go.

So as a brother and as a pastor, I make bold to call us to keep Holy Week.

Go to Jerusalem this week by reading, meditating and praying
over the passion narratives in the four gospels.
Read the stories and read them again.
Have this story permeate your consciousness and transform your imaginations.
Never allow this story to be too far from you as you go about your daily tasks.

And go to church.
Maybe Wine Before Breakfast is about all that you can handle at this stage of your life.
Maybe the closest that you come to church is reading these blogs at empireremixed.com.

Well this week, I call you to church.
Don’t miss out on the services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
And if there is a Great Vigil service happening near you on Saturday night, go there too.

All of these services call us to follow Jesus to Jerusalem.
They invite you into the story of all stories.
Going to church this week just might save your life.

In prayerful humility and pastoral boldness,

Brian

You can find the full liturgy here.

by Brian Walsh

In the last verse of “Waiting for a Miracle” Bruce Cockburn sings:

Struggle for a dollar, scuffle for a dime
Step out from the past and try to hold the line
So how come history takes such a long, long time
When you’re waiting for a miracle

These are amongst my favourite lines from the Bruce Cockburn songbook.

How come history takes such a long, long time,
when you’re waiting for a miracle?

Cockburn had in mind peasants in post-revolutionary Nicaragua when he penned those words:

hanging on for dear life in the midst of the contra war,
struggling for the most basic economic means of survival,
waiting for the miracle of Nicaraguan liberation.

But he could just as easily be describing folks in the basement of this church

every day of the week, getting a free meal,
and then going back out onto the street to struggle for a dollar,
scuffle for a dime.

Folks with a broken past that cripples them, haunts them,
…and so they are waiting, day in and day out,
…for the miracle of life coming together,
…the miracle of a job, maybe a family, maybe a place to call home.

So how come history takes such a long, long time,
when you’re waiting for a miracle?

Or maybe this longing, this struggle to keep it all together,
is your life, my life.

…Stepping out from the past,
…living with broken memories, broken covenants, broken hearts.
…And in the midst of all that brokenness you’re just trying to hold the line,
…just trying to keep body and soul together,
…and you’re waiting.
…Waiting for some sort of resolution,
…waiting for hope to be justified,
…waiting for a miracle.

The power of the poetry is in the breadth and depth of its resonance.
…And these lines resonate so well.

In fact, I think that maybe these lines would also have resonated
…with the folks in the Jerusalem temple that day when Jesus made such a scene.

Here they were,
…struggling for a dollar, scuffling for a dime,
…or more specifically, struggling for a denari, struggling for a drachma
…and then scuffling to get fair exchange on these currencies,
…as they struggled to pay their tithes and offerings in recognized shekels.

But there was more going on in the temple than just currency exchange
…and the buying and selling of animals for sacrifice.

They were also stepping out from the past and trying to hold the line.

I mean, here they were, in Herod’s temple,
…built under the watchful eye of the Roman authorities,
…subject to imperial administration,
and the very built structure of this temple reminds them of a past that has failed.

…Every time they walk into this temple,
…they recall the temple of old.
…Every time they come to pay their tithes and make their sacrifices,
…they are burdened by the memory of broken covenant.
…Every time they come into the presence of the Lord,
…they can sense the absence.
…Every time they come to the house of the Lord,
…they remember that the glory departed,

God left home and has not returned.

And so they come to the temple for the festivals,
…especially the festival of Passover,
…and they are waiting for a miracle.

Waiting for a new Passover,
…waiting for a new exodus,
…waiting for a new liberation from empire,
…waiting for the restoration of Israel,
…waiting for the promises to be fulfilled,
…waiting for the glory of God to return to the temple,
…waiting for the Messiah to come,
…waiting for this house to become home.

And history takes such a long, long time,
…when you’re waiting for a miracle.

Waiting for the glory to return.

“And the word became flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of the father’s only son,
full of grace and truth.” (1.14)

So this glory,
this word-made-flesh glory,
full of grace and truth,
returned to the temple.

If folks had been waiting for a miracle,
if folks had been waiting for a resolution of their broken past,
if folks had been waiting for the glory to return and make this house a home,
if folks had been waiting this house to be restored as a place of prayer for all nations,
…then this was the moment.

But what does the glory do when it returns to the temple?
…He overturns the tables,
…and brandishing a whip,
…he chases the money changers out of the building,
…disrupting the daily business of the temple.

How come history takes such a long, long time,
when you’re waiting for a miracle?

This the fulfillment of these deep longings?
This is the resolution, the redemption that was promised?
This is the path to liberation, the new exodus?
This is the way that the glory returns?
This is what homecoming in the house of the Lord looks like?

We tend to call this event the cleansing of the temple.

And on one level that is right.
This is the feast of the Passover, and before Passover, the house must be cleaned.
And so Jesus is cleaning house.
Passover remembers the exodus liberation from Egypt.
And when you are about to embark on an exodus journey you have to travel light,
…and therefore all that would encumber you needs to be discarded.
It is time to clean house.

It is time to also clean house because a house full of oppression and deceit,
…a house accommodated as Herod’s temple was, to the imperial authorities,
…can never be a house of welcome,
…can never be a place of justice and hospitality,
…can never be the site of the homecoming of God with the people of God.
So Jesus cleans house.

But this is more than cleaning house,
This is a kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
The light shines in the darkness, John tells us,
…but sometimes you gotta kick at that darkness so the light can shine through.

In the passage before this text, at the wedding feast of Cana,
…Jesus tells his mother that his hour has not yet come,
…but somehow you know that it is near.
…Somehow you know that the time is short,
……‘don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by?’
…and as this story unfolds, it becomes clear that these shortened hours
……bespeak a dangerous time.

And here in the temple, Jesus lives dangerously.
…His zeal for the Father’s house is dangerous,
…his actions are criminal.
But ‘nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight,
…gotta kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.’

John interprets all of this with a citation from Psalm 69:
…‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’

Bruce Cockburn might sing,
…“Voice of the Nova, smile of the dew,
…all of our yearning only comes home to you.”
All of our yearning only comes home to you.
…You, Creator God, are our home.
…Our yearning for home, our restlessness,
…our longing, our waiting for a miracle,
…only comes home to you.

Zeal for your house will consume me.
Zeal for homecoming in the house of the Lord will consume me.

And so the chorus sings, “O love that fires the sun, keep me burning.”

And here in the temple that love that fires the sun,
that love that gives birth to the universe,
that steadfast love that fills all things,
manifest in the Word through whom all things were made,
that creation calling love that is made flesh in their very presence

overflows into a zeal for the house of God,
overflows into a zeal for homecoming,
that will strike out with wrath and anger
at all forces of homelessness,
all forces that will serve to keep us from our true homecoming,
all forces that will inhibit the miracle of true liberation,
regardless of how religiously pious or ecclesiastically sanctioned
they might be.

[Let those with ears, hear. Let the listener understand.]

So this is more than a cleaning of house.
This is declaring that this house, this liturgical regime, this compromised religiousity,
…can no longer be a site of homecoming.

While the other gospel writers build the tension of the narrative
up to the conflict in the temple,

John begins with this conflict.

We are waiting for a miracle, and John makes it clear that this miracle
finds no home in Herod’s temple,
so Jesus overturns the tables,
disrupts the financial markets,
and interrupts a worship that will keep the people numb and subservient.

And the leaders, recognizing that only one who is making some sort of Messianic claim
could dare engage in such sacrilege,
ask “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
What kind of sign might you be able to produce that will convince us that you have the authority to do such an audacious and blasphemous thing?
Because only God could authorize such an act!

And as will become his wont, Jesus offers a near to incomprehensible answer:
“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

On one level this is a seditious and ridiculous statement about the destruction of the very temple in which they stood.

But more profoundly, as John will clarify, Jesus speaks here of his death and resurrection.

What sign do I offer?
Nothing at the moment.

But wait.
…Wait for another miracle.
…Wait for a return visit to this temple, to this city, before these religious authorities.
…Wait just a few more weeks until the end of Lent.
…Wait for Holy Week and bear witness to a crucified Messiah.
…Wait for Easter and bear witness to a resurrected Lord.
…Wait, because cross and resurrection is the path home.

Two thousand years, and half a world away,
…dying trees still grow greener when you pray.

Dying trees. Crucifixion trees.
Grow greener. Bear new life.
And call us back home.

Jesus walks into the temple and overturns the whole damn thing,
because he is driven by a zeal for God’s house.
When he returns to Jerusalem during Holy Week,
he will say, “in my father’s house, there are many rooms.”

Jesus throws people out of the temple,
and invites us all into his father’s house.

And like all good homecomings,
there is a feast in that house.
A feast of bread and wine.
A feast that remembers the cross, in the miracle of the resurrection.

This is a feast of mystery,
and this feast of beauty can intoxicate,
intoxicate,
intoxicate.
This feast of beauty can intoxicate,
just like the finest wine.

The feast is ready.

Welcome home.

Back in September 2011, Trinity College, Church of the Redeemer, The Gateway and Imago hosting a conversation about Faith and Film.

The event included a four-member panel and a theological reflection on the short film KAVI given by Brian Walsh.

Audio from that event is now up and posted on Imago’s website here.

From the book of Revelation, back to Genesis, into the Torah, through the monarchy and then on to Isaiah with his prophecies of judgement, exile and return, the Wine Before Breakfast community has spent the last number of months meditating on a biblical vision of the city. We’ve posted a number of the sermons from those services here at Empire Remixed.

And it is an ambivalent vision of the city. We began with the cataclysmic Fall of Babylon and moved in our second week to the hope of a New Jerusalem. And its been back and forth all year.

One day you’re waiting for the sky to fall,
the next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all

Apocalyptic dread and the beauty of hope. A biblical theology of the city finds itself between these two poles.

Embrace one without the other and you either have a naïve urban optimism or a crushing despair about all urban life.

But optimism and despair aren’t in the Christian vocabulary. Rather, our imaginations are shaped by prophetic critique and hope that faces head on the penchant for cities to be sites of exclusion, violence and oppression, while never leaving the city to its own fate. No, grace makes beauty out of ugly things. And so prophetic hope engenders an imagination and a praxis of justice, hospitality and restoration.

That’s where we have come to in our reflections on a theology of the city.

And now it is time to pause.

We have certainly not arrived, but it is time to pause nonetheless.

And that is what Lent is about.
A pause.
A cessation.
A stopping for a while.

To reflect.
To pray.
To fast.
To meditate.

St. Paul writes to the Philippians:

Finally my beloved, whatever is true,
whatever is honourable,
whatever is just,
whatever is pure,
whatever is pleasing,
whatever is commendable,
if there is any excellence
and if anything worthy of praise,
think about these things. (4.8-9)

So we are going to take Paul’s word on this and take time to think on such things.

And at Wine Before Breakfast we’re going to do so throughout Lent by taking precisely this letter to the Philippians as our site of meditation.

But here’s the thing. This isn’t an invitation to simply put out of mind all that troubles us, all that is disturbing, all that is broken and ugly.

That isn’t meditation worthy of followers of Jesus.

St. Paul isn’t counseling that we avert our gaze from the sinfulness of our world, our city, our community and our own lives.

Indeed, he writes these words precisely from a site of great suffering and injustice.

You see, the apostle is in prison when he writes this letter, likely at the very heart of the empire, in Rome.

There we are back to the city again.

And while this letter is nothing if not profoundly confident in the power of the resurrection, the apostle’s eyes are never too far from the cross.

And while the letter abounds in calls to rejoice and to live lives full of joy, that joy is always in the face of suffering and potential death.

Imprisoned in one city, the apostle writes to a Christian community in another city. He writes in confident hope and in the face of serious trials and struggles in the community.

In the face of the power and prestige of Roman citizenship, he tells them that they have another citizenship that is far more important.

In the face of the authority and imperial hierarchy of the empire and its emperor, he speaks of one who was a victim of that empire and yet will be exalted above every name, so that at his name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he, not Caesar, is Lord.

In fact, he will write that anything that we give priority to in our lives is nothing but bullshit (exact translation!) in contrast to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord.

Bullshit. That’s a pretty good word for sin.

And so, with Paul, we are invited during Lent to reflect on our bullshit, but not out of some twisted narcissistic preoccupation with how terrible we are. No, we face the bullshit, in the light of who Jesus is, rejoicing in grace, longing for lives of righteousness.

And in the end, that will bring us right back to the city and our call to bear witness to its healing.

So my sisters and brothers, I invite you to enter into Lent with Philippians as your companion.

With holy intention, enter into Lent to meditate on your sin, your Redeemer, and your calling in the Kingdom of God.

And maybe you would like to join us at Wine Before Breakfast and take Paul’s letter to the Philippians as your text for the next 40 days. Read this letter. Read it daily. Read it slowly. Read it prayerfully.

Let’s keep Lent together.

by Brian Walsh

It always comes back to creation and exodus.

Figure out Genesis and Exodus and you’ve got the most foundational outline of the biblical story.

And when the biblical imagination takes a redemptive turn,
…when a prophet moves from judgment to hope,
…and the biblical narrative transitions from the ruins to rebuilding,
…there are two themes that will pretty much always be found:
……creation and liberation.

We’ve heard so much bad news from Isaiah,
…so much condemnation on the Holy City of Jerusalem,
…that I didn’t have the heart to read Isaiah 3 to the community this morning.

The poet’s depiction of the collapse of all societal and civilizational structures and supports,
…his portrayal of a community devoid of any leadership,
…his condemnation – yet again – of the oppression of the poor,
…his denunciation of opulent luxury,
…and his provocative picture of the smell of perfume being overpowered by the stench of death,
……the sashes that the fine ladies wore around their wastes become ropes for their necks,
……their beautiful hair gives way to baldness,
……their rich robes become sackcloth,
……and instead of beauty they are adorned with shame,
all of this just seemed like too much.

And then, when the passage ends with there being so many dead amongst the men that the women clamour around the remaining few men begging to be known by their name, begging to be taken into their families, so they won’t be left destitute and alone, well, it’s all so degrading and embarrassing.

And almost as if he knows that this can’t go on any longer,
…as if he knows that his hearers can’t handle this any more,
the prophet leaves poetry behind and writes some hope-filled prose.
But it is no less rich and nuanced for being prose rather than poetry.

And it all comes back to Genesis and Exodus, creation and liberation.

In his vision of restoration, the prophet remembers the beauty and fruitfulness of the land that we first meet in the creation narratives.

Indeed, he uses the word “create” for what God is about to do,
…God will create something new in the ruins of the devastated city.
And this act of new creation will deal with the filth, the death, the shame of the past.
…The bloodstains – both evoking the ritual uncleanliness of menstrual blood and the literal reality of the blood of war that has stained the streets of the city – will all be cleaned.
…And it is the Lord God himself, the Holy One of Israel, who will get down on his hands and knees and scrub those streets clean.
…This is new creation, but new creation always comes at a cost,
……a cost to the Holy One,
……a cost paid, in the end, by God.

And then, the prophet weds together the language of creation with the language of exodus.

…“Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night.”

…That’s got to ring some bells.
…A cloud by day and a fire by night.
…These are, of course, strong exodus images.

If there is to be hope for the city,
…if there is to be rebuilding in the ruins,
…if there is to be an urban renewal that will go deep enough to deal with the urban rot and corruption,
…then there must be a new exodus.

There is no new creation without a new exodus.
There is no city of God without liberation from the empire
…that has held the city captive.
This vision of a new city, this theology of urban ministry,
this hope for beauty to arise out of the ashes,
is not a vision of arrival, but of departure.

The prophet here tells us that there is a new exodus on offer,
…a new path of liberation,
…a new journey that is tenuous, long and dangerous,
…but that is led by nothing less than the cloud by day and the fire by night.

If the picture of judgment is one of the defied and insulted glory of God
…abandoning his people and giving them over to judgment,
then the hope of this new exodus is that the glory returns,
…God’s presence accompanies them on this journey,
…sojourns with them, and takes up residence again in the restored city.

And over the glory, the prophet pictures a canopy.
…A sacred canopy of protection, a place of refuge,
…a shelter from the storm and the rain,
…that replaces the fallen and fraudulently constructed canopy of Israel.

Shelter from the storm,
a sacred canopy of protection,
a place of refuge.

The picture that the prophet paints is very interesting.
…You’ve got this glory, this sense of presence,
……this sense of cultural and religious weight to things,
…and over the glory there is a canopy, a pavilion,
……a shelter from the storm.

Now it seems to me that this sense of glory and canopy is pretty common to the way in which humans shape culture and conceive of their civilizations and cities.

Cities bear their own glory, their own sense of identity,
…their own gravity, their own weight of meaning,
…value and esteem.
Their glory can be found in their accomplishments,
…often celebrated in monuments and events,
but that glory can also be a matter of reputation and fame,
…and it is most often manifest in the built environment of the city,
its towers and neighbourhoods, parks and public buildings.

And over all of this glory, human life lives under a sacred canopy that provides ultimate legitimation and protection for that glory.

Now think about it for a moment.
…The canopy legitimates the glory,
…the canopy protects and justifies the glory.

So if you think of something like fascist architecture,
…together with the well-ordered civic structure of fascist societies,
then the sacred canopy over that fascist glory will be a mythology, a narrative,
…that provides sacred legitimation for this fascist state
and also for the fascist leader.

Or think of the glory of Washington, D.C
…While there a sense of a borrowed glory from ancient Rome in the classic architecture and urban planning of Washington, D.C., there is a glory nonetheless.
…A glory manifest in the monuments, the museums, the Capital building and the White House. The glory of America is palpable when you go to Washington.
…And, of course, that glory all exists under the sacred canopy of American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny and a particular telling of a narrative of exodus from bondage to freedom.

The glory of the city and the sacred canopy of the city will always be mutually supportive.

So here’s the question.
…If the sacred canopy over the city of God is the biblical narrative of creation and exodus,
…if this is a canopy erected by the covenant keeping God who will personally clean the blood from our streets,
…indeed, if this is a canopy that in Jesus Christ is erected in the shadow of the cross where his own blood was shed,
…then what would be the glory of such a city?
…What would the presence of God look like in that city?
…What would the social structures look like?
…What would refuge look like, and who would be given such refuge?

…If there is no going back to the city of judgment,
……with its oppression of the poor,
……it’s ostentatious opulence,
……it’s never ending consumption,
……it’s social, racial and ethnic discrimination,
……it’s built structure of human arrogance,
……and it’s fraudulently constructed canopy of human autonomy,
…then what does this city of God look like?

I don’t know about you, friends,
but my life is pretty much all about looking for that place of refuge,
that shelter from the storm.

I’m right there, looking for this better city, this habitation of God,
…this exodus journey home.
I’m right there, shivering in the cold, slipping under this canopy,
…finding my way into the pavilion, getting warm in the glory.
That’s part of what Wine Before Breakfast is all about.
…A time to come in from the cold,
…a place of refuge,
…a shelter from the storm.

And the canopy over it all is the story of this blood-cleaning God:
……Christ has died,
……Christ has risen,
……Christ will come again.

Under that canopy, and having tasted that glory,
…I long for a city – this city! – to be a place of refuge for the refugee,
…….a place of shelter for those who are most vulnerable,
…….a place that finds its glory
…in the quality of life that is shared by its inhabitants,
…the depth of justice of its social and economic structures,
…and the rich neighourliness of its common life.

So come under the canopy, friends,
let’s build the city of God.
Amen.

A meditation on Isaiah 2.5-22

Culture is not optional.

I’m pretty sure that my former colleague, Calvin Seerveld, coined that phrase.

Culture is not optional because there is no such thing as human life together that is not at heart a culture-forming enterprise. Human language, family structures, gender relations, economies, agriculture and creative expression is all culturally founded and culturally formative.

And for ancient Israel, culture making is at the very foundation of human identity. We are mandated to be fruitful, to multiply and to “fill” the earth.

That’s what culture is all about. It is a filling exercise. Not that the earth is empty, but that the human creature has the unique call to fill creation with cultural artifacts, traditions, institutions and relationships that serve to open up creational potentials. My friend Bob Goudzwaard calls this a process of disclosure.

And cities, are a societal, spatial, economic, political and aesthetic concentration of such cultural filling. Cities fill their geographical space with people, with transportation systems, with the arts, with buying and selling, with political structures, with homes and neighbourhoods, celebrations and community.

And so, it seems to me, that just as culture is not optional, so also is urban life not optional. For good or ill, the culture forming creature is invariably also a city-building creature.

Culture is not optional and cities are not optional.

Culture may not be optional, but neither is it determined. There are various ways in which we engage in culture-forming, various ways in which we can build cities. Indeed, there are various ways to engage in cultural and urban ‘filling.’

For example, if you fill your cities with fossil fuel burning automobiles, paving vast tracks of the land and prioritizing the automobile over public transit, bicycles, and pedestrian traffic, then you will create a noisy and smelly city with poor air quality that will be decidedly inhospitable to human species on foot and other species on wing. And this automotive filling of your city will have devastating implications for neighbourhood life (if you don’t walk, you don’t meet your neighbours), health and safety (just look at the statistics on injury and death, not to mention respiratory disease because of the car) and the city budget (the infrastructure for the automobile is decidedly more expensive than that of other modes of transportation).

Not all urban ‘filling’ is created equal. Indeed, much urban filling is decidedly deformative, closing down a rich urban life of diverse communities in a city that is socially, economically, ecological and culturally fruitful and sustainable.

And that is precisely what Isaiah is on about in our this text that hardly ever gets any attention.

The prophet perceives a city that is full.

There are the intellectual elite from various cultures, serving as advisors to the ruling authorities. The city is full of these consultants, all paid a handsome wage.

That they are earning their keep is evidenced by the economic wealth of this city. It is full of silver and gold, there is no end to their treasures. Isn’t that what cities are all about? Civic machines that generate wealth for the economic elite?

And once you’ve got that kind of wealth around, well then, of course you will need a strong police and military establishment in order to protect those treasures and those who hold that wealth.

But this prophet sees more.

This prophet sees past the shining towers of the financial district and the proliferation of condos for the wealthy while homelessness continues to plague thousands in his city.

He sees past the well-spoken educated classes with their fine economic analysis and cultural tastes, while the poor continue to struggle with literacy.

He sees past the rhetoric of tax reductions for the owners of cars and the smoke of budget cuts to libraries, homeless shelters and other social services.

He sees past the security establishment that keeps the G20 protestors in their place.

He sees past the ideology of the ruling classes with their endless treasures and security apparatus.

He sees past all of this and sees a city full not only of soothsayers, gold, horses and chariots – this is a city full of idols.

Humans are created in the image of God and called to fill the earth. If, in sin, we choose not to image God, we will still fill the earth.

Remember, culture is not optional.

But we will fill the earth, construct our culture, and fill our cities in the image of idols.

If we do not image God, then we will necessarily and inevitably bow the knee, subject our lives and construct our cities in service of graven images.

Call this “Biblical Anthropology 101.”

So far, this prophet is just a man with clear vision.

Anyone with eyes could see that this city had bowed the knee to idols in its urban planning, its priorities, its understanding of what makes for a ‘world class city.’

Anyone could see that lying behind that self-interested ideology, civic self-aggrandizement, and urban planning for myopic economic growth was idolatry.

But this prophet sees even more.

In the face of this world class city of education, wealth and security, in the face of this city full of idols, the prophet conjures up an impossible scenario.

It all comes crumbling down.
In a series of prophetic reversals the haughty eye is brought low,
…the proud and arrogant are humbled.

“It’s time for the horizons of the universe to be glimpsed even by the faceless kings of corporations” – and in that glimpse, it all comes crashing down.

“It’s time for chaos to win and walk off with the prize which turns out to be nothing.”

The civilizational order of this city, built as it is on idolatry, will collapse and chaos will reign.

Why? Why can’t such an urban experiment succeed?

Why?

Because God aligns himself against this city in all of its splendour,
…against this culture in all of its beauty,
…against this economy in all of its wealth,
…against this built environment in all of its arrogance.

Ten times, the prophet repeats that word – against, against, against.

And beyond the range of normal sight in this city of idolatry, the prophet sees that “the idols shall utterly pass away.”

These idols that exude such power, such permanence, such authority, will utterly pass away.

They will be so useless that when the collapse comes, when the arrogant and powerful are looking for a hole to crawl into, they’ll have to throw away their idols to the moles and the bats.

Empty handed, they will leave these unclean symbols of cultural filling for the pleasure of unclean animals. That’s all that they will be good for.

So culture is not optional.
And cities are not optional either.
But that means that we must struggle to maintain real options for our cultural and urban lives.
…Real options for a sustainable city.
…Real options for the shaping of communities of neighbourliness.
…Real options for a city full of creativity and imagination.
…Real options for a city of justice for the most marginalized.
…Real options for democratic freedom of expression.
…Real options for homemaking in secure housing.
…Real options for those excluded from power and opportunity.
…Real options for kids to play, to learn, to grow.

Culture is not optional, but idolatry will always close down our real options.

And so the prophet offers an alternative:

O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord. (Is. 2.5).

Culture is not optional and urban life is not optional.

Let us be a people who seek the shalom of the city,
who seek a city of peace,
and who will build the city of God, in the light of the Lord,
in the light of his Word.