Miroslav Volf on economics, purpose and achieving systemic change in the face of the free market.

(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.

(On March 31 I spoke to the Southwestern Ontario regional conference of StreetLevel. I took the opportunity to lead these wonderful frontline street ministers into Holy Week from the perspective of someone who was there. Someone who was passionate for his city. I think that maybe this can function well as a reflection for Holy Saturday. This day of disappointment. This day of such profound loss.)

I was passionate about my city.
I so longed that it would live up to its name,
that Jerusalem would indeed be a place
where shalom rained down like a Spring shower.

In this city, however, what we knew more violence than shalom.
Instead of the rains of peace, our streets knew more about the flow of blood.

Whether it was the forced labour to build this city under Solomon of old,
the oppression of the poor by the rich under one regime after another,
the child sacrifice during those times of idolatry,
the violent cruelty of the Babylonian invasion,
the bloody machinations of Herod the Great,
the hard boot and sharp swords of Roman occupiers,
or the Temple hierarchy with its sacrifices and extortionist taxation,
the result was the same.

Bloodshed, oppression, and a city of violence that begets violence.

But that’s not what a city named shalom is supposed to look like.

And I so longed that the promises for my city would be fulfilled.

I so longed for streets of safety
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;
they would plant gardens
and have community feasts;
where people would have fulfilling labour
and child protection agencies would be irrelevant.

I so longed for 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.

This was my hope for my city.

And I worked with all of my heart to realize that hope.
But sometimes I just needed to get out of town,
and have some time alone to pray and rest.
So it had become something of an annual ritual for me.
On the first day of the week of Passover, I would get up dark and early,
pack a lunch with a good amount of wine to sustain me for the day,
and walk through the Temple precincts, out the Golden Gate,
down into the Kidron Valley,
and start the climb up the paths on the side of the Mount of Olives.

And, as usual, the guards by the gate would give me a bit of a look over,
but I always knew that it wasn’t folks leaving Jerusalem
that concerned them so much,
as it was folks entering later in the day.

You know there was never really just one reason
why I took this annual hike up the Mount of Olives
at the beginning of Passover week.

On the face of it,
I just wanted to get out of the hustle, bustle
and dust of the city for a day.
Smell the moist soil;
enjoy a little green instead of the drab browns and grays of the city.
Listen to the birds sing.
And just be quiet for a while.

Maybe that is it.
I wanted to be quiet.

It was Passover week, and I wanted to prepare myself.

As I climbed I would sing one of the great psalms of our people,

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever!”

And I believed Psalm 118 as I sang,
even though most of the evidence all around me
brought into question whether it was true.
It’s hard to believe in God’s steadfast love
when everywhere you look you see imperial hatred and cruelty.
Somehow I’ve always had a hard time putting together God’s steadfast love
with Roman rule over the holy city.

Of course this tension was especially heightened for me,
and for all of my people, during Passover.

And that is why Passover was a dangerous time in Jerusalem.

Here we celebrated a feast of liberating memories
in the face of an oppressive reality.

In the face of Roman imperial rule we remembered
our earliest memories of imperial brutality, our first experience of slavery.

And we remembered our God
who confounded and destroyed our oppressors.

We remembered our exodus, the blood on our doorposts,
the Passover lamb.

So Passover was a dangerous time.

These kinds of memories only served to deepen our disappointment and pain,
and make more acute our longing for liberation.

It’s quite the thing to remember God setting you free
from one house of bondage
when you are living in another house of bondage.

And the Romans knew that Passover was a time ripe for revolution,
so the tensions in the city were high.

Perhaps so high that I just needed to get away,
climb the Mount of Olives
and calm myself for the week ahead.

But as I climbed and sang my psalm,
I remembered that there was always another good reason
to be up here at the beginning of Passover week.

From the top of the Mount of Olives I could not only see the holy city,
I could look down the road to my left and see the pilgrims
come up the Jericho road to the city and the Temple for Passover.

They would be singing the same psalm that I was singing,
and encouraged by their procession,
maybe I could believe that refrain about God’s steadfast love a little longer.

This particular morning, however, was different.

I was at the top of the mountain shortly after the sun had risen
and the Jericho road was still deserted.

But off in the distance to the west,
down the road that came in from the coast,
I could see a cloud of dust off in the distance.

And my heart began to beat with anxiety.
I stopped singing my psalm and stared down that road
trying to catch a glimpse of what was coming.

As the procession came closer and closer
it was becoming clear what it meant.

But then I began to hear noises coming from the other side,
sounds echoing up the valley from the Jericho road.

Familiar sounds of singing.

The pilgrims were coming to Jerusalem.

I looked down to my left for a few minutes,
straining to hear snippets of the same psalm,

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his steadfast love endures forever!”

Joy was beginning to overcome my anxiety,
but then I turned and looked again to my right,
down the road from the West, and there they were.

A fresh regiment of Roman troops marching down the road to Jerusalem.
A little show of force to remind the locals about who was in control around here.

A strong arm to keep an oppressed people down
and to confront their memories and hopes
with the hard reality of Roman boots, swords,
and … if necessary … crosses.

The Romans knew what week it was,
and they knew that Jerusalem posed a security threat
to the empire during Passover,
so they reinforced the security personnel in the city.

But the noise from my left was getting louder.

Joy and despair on a collision course.
Hope and repression about to meet again.

I looked back down the Jericho road
and listened again for the song of the pilgrims.

And then I first heard, and then saw something
that could only mean trouble this week.

What I heard was the crowd singing the end Psalm 118,

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,”

but it seemed like they were singing,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.”

That in itself was a dangerous thing to sing
in a land that already had a puppet king in the north, Herod,
and a Roman appointed governor here in the south, Pilate.

But what made this crowd recklessly seditious and a threat to us all,
was that it appeared that they actually had someone
who they were heralding as a king!

There in the middle of the crowd sat a man on a young colt,
or perhaps a donkey (I couldn’t tell from that distance),
and the crowd was shouting to him as the arriving king!

Laying down their cloaks and palm branches on the road
in order to keep the dust out of this king’s eyes,
they kept singing,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!”

And all I could think was,
thank God there is this mountain
between those crazy pilgrims and the soldiers
coming down the road from the other side of the city.

Because if there was one thing that was clear to me that morning,
it was that the pilgrims’ enthusiasm notwithstanding,
if this so-called king was going to bring peace in heaven,
it sure wasn’t too likely that any peace was going to come
from this display of civil disobedience along the Jericho road.

And my hunch was that this week would not see any heavenly peace in Jerusalem,
rather, all hell was about to break loose!

Rains of peace, you say?
Not too likely.

My city of violence was about to erupt again.

The same old shit,
the same violence,
the same repression,
the same blood stains on the streets.

I’m sorry, I know that I’m sounding cynical and jaded.
I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, if it is Passover,
and if God is the God who sets his people free from the oppression of empire,
then why not embrace this display of revolutionary piety
down the Jericho road as a sign of God’s coming liberation?

Why not take this bit of street theatre as an encouragement
for my own hopes for the restoration of my city,
my own hopes for a renewal of Jerusalem?

Well, I have two reasons for my cynicism.

First, I’ve been there and done that.

You see, this wasn’t the first rabbi to show up out of the wilderness
proclaiming the day of the Lord.

He wasn’t the first to walk into Jerusalem with some divinely sanctioned
vision for urban renewal.

These guys are a dime a dozen,
and I’ve actually embraced a few of them myself,
only to be disappointed time and again.

No, that is not a path I am willing to go down again.
Not one of them has made my city into the promised city of shalom.

Not one!

But there is another reason why I am so jaded.

You see, I lived in Jerusalem during that week and I know what happened.

In the first place, when I got back to the city it didn’t take too much effort
to find the band of messiah-welcoming pilgrims that I had seen.

I wanted to get to them and try to talk some sense into them,
tell them how dangerous this little display was.

But I first saw one of my Pharisee friends
and he told me that he and other Pharisees were out on the road that morning
to welcome the pilgrims.
And they actually had tried to get this rabbi to cool it|
and tell his supporters to quiet down.

You know what he said in reply?

“I tell you, if these people were silent, the stones on the side of the road would shout out!”

The stones on the side of the road? Right!

This guy thinks that all of creation will somehow recognize
that he is the returning king!

Ludicrous.

The crazy ravings of a back woods rabbi, however, weren’t my biggest worry.

I was worried about the Romans
and about this guy trying to pull off an insurrection,
that would spell disaster for everyone.

Blood would be flowing in the streets.

And, as I’ve said, there is no shalom in blood stained streets.

Finally I caught up to the crowd following him.

And where do you think he was going?

You got it, straight to the Temple.

Why?

Was he going to rally the people for action?
Was he seeking priestly sanction for his revolution?
Was he intending to collect the weapons that had been hidden there?
Or maybe pray that God would bless this revolution and drive out
the Romans as he had vanquished the Egyptians so long ago?

No. He did none of these things.

Rather, he walked into the Temple,
looked around at the daily business
of selling animals for sacrifice
and exchanging Roman currency for Temple money,
and went berserk!

He started yelling and screaming about his Father’s house
becoming a den of insurrectionists
and proceeds to kick over tables and drive people out!

If the little bit of street theatre on the road from Jericho
was provocative in the face of the empire,
then this outrageous behaviour in the Temple
could only be designed to incense and anger the leaders of the covenant people.

Well, it worked.

I don’t need to rehearse the story, it is fairly well known.

As the week progressed,
this rabbi had the people spellbound by his teaching|
and managed to alienate just about everyone

– Sadducees, Pharisees, the emperor, the scribes, the chief priests.

And, worse of all, he demonstrated nothing but contempt for the Temple

– even said that it would be destroyed.

Well, the leaders didn’t really need any more than that, did they?

I mean, if anyone had any lingering hope that this might actually be the Messiah,
then that hope was now dashed.

How could the Messiah of the God of Israel,
the God who dwells in the Temple,
ever believe that the restoration of Israel could be established
without that God and his Temple?

How could the City of David be restored,
how could this city be filled with the blessings of God,
how could the word go forth from Zion,
if Solomon’s Temple was not also restored?
Pernicious nonsense!

By Thursday, things had pretty much come to a head.

I don’t know all the details,
but I hear that it happened at night,
there was a betrayal from within the rabbi’s own group of disciples,
the civic and religious authorities somehow got into collusion
and, well, then the crosses came out on Friday.

That’s how the Romans keep peace you know, by using crosses.

The peace of the cross, they called it.

I heard that the high priest had said something
about it being better that one man should die
than a whole people should perish.

He was a wise man that high priest.

So the rabbi died and they put a sign above his head on the cross that said,
“King of the Jews.”

The irony was a bit much, eh?
A king hanging on a cross.
As if the kingdom could ever come that way.

Well that was about a year ago now.

There are some folks who believe that this rabbi rose from the dead,
and now they are saying that the kingdom is actually here.

Yea, and so are the Romans.

Children are still born for calamity,
the homeless are still on the street,
weeping and the cry of distress fills the air,
blood stains the alleys,
the security forces keep a lid on things,
and Jerusalem still doesn’t live up to its name.

I’m not sure that it ever will.

I was passionate about my city.

Now I’m just numb.

I longed for a city where shalom
rained down like a Spring shower.

Now I’m just not so sure.

There have been too many damn crosses.

I don’t sing Psalm 118 anymore.

And I think I’ll take a pass on my annual hike up the Mount of Olives this year.

Just this week, as the Hunger Games movie premiers around the world, a fine little ebook has been published by Patheos Press called The Hunger Games and the Gospel. The author, Julie Clawson might be known to some readers because of her fine blog onehandclapping or because her very helpful book Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of our Daily Choices.

Julie asked me to read the new book and consider writing an endorsement. I liked the book so much that I wrote two endorsements. My daughter Madeleine liked the second one better, but the publisher went with the first. So, without further ado, here is the second endorsement that I wrote:

Julie Clawson writes out of a breadth of biblical understanding, serious commitment to Christian discipleship, love of a good story and with all the passion and day to day wisdom of a mom. That’s right. A mom. There is so much to commend this creative engagement with Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy. The way that Clawson plays with the resonances between the trilogy and biblical faith.

The way that she interprets the main character in terms of the virtues of the Jesus. The way that her interpretation honors the integrity of Collins’ work precisely by bringing it into play with her own faith perspective and in relation to contemporary life. But at the heart of it all, Clawson writes as a mom. Her kids and family life keep on popping up in the book. And so they should.

After all, what is it that the empire always wants from us – whether Panem in The Hunger Games, Babylon and Rome in biblical times, or our own imperial world of our own global consumerism? The empire always wants our children! And Julie Clawson is saying that her children are not up for grabs!

A meditation on Rev. 21.9-14; 21.22-22.5 delivered in the Wine Before Breakfast community on September 20, 2011

Grief is the doorway to hope,
tragic endings give birth to surprising beginnings,
lament gives way to praise,
and death is overturned in resurrection.

That’s the good news this morning.
That’s how the failed, painful reality of Babylon
meets the restored city of Jerusalem.

And it is all there in the very first line of our reading.

“Then one of the angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me….”

Man, by the time I’ve got to the end of the book of Revelation
…the last thing I want to see is one of those angels
…with their bowls of plagues.
The last thing I want to hear is any more bad news
…from one of those angelic messengers.

But this time it is different.

This time, that angel of woe, that angel of judgement, that angel of endings,
…brings news of blessing, of restoration and of radical new beginnings.

Instead of ‘come look at the whore of Babylon’
…the angel says “Come, I will show you the bride,
…the wife of the Lamb.”

And instead of presiding over the fall of Babylon, this angel
…shows St. John “the holy city of Jerusalem
…coming down out of heaven from God.”

No wonder we sing,
…Love divine, all loves excelling
…joy of heaven to earth come down,
…fix in us thy humble dwelling,
…all thy faithful mercies crown

In this vision, the joy of heaven comes down,
…the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven
…as a bride adorned for her husband.

And in this city, God dwells with his people,
…God moves into the neighbourhood,
…God tabernacles with his people as he did in the wilderness
……so long ago.

No wonder John can’t see any temple in this city.
…Who needs a temple when God is dwelling with you?
…Who needs a temple when the whole city,
……indeed the whole creation,
……is the temple?

If Babylon symbolized the city as a failed construct of idolatrous humanity,
…then the New Jerusalem is a city that comes directly from the hand of God.

If Babylon was a place where the sound of the minstrel will be no more,
…and the sound of industry will be no more,
…and the sound of lovers in erotic giggle will be no more,
then the New Jerusalem is the city where “death will be no more
…mourning and crying will be no more
…for the first things have passed away.”

If Babylon was a dwelling place for demons
…and foul spirits and all foul things,
then the New Jerusalem is the dwelling place of God
…where no foul things can exist.

If Babylon was an economy of opulence coupled with exploitation,
…if the kings of the earth weep over Babylon in her fall,
then the New Jerusalem is a city of rich cultural diversity and abundance
…as the kings of the earth bring the wealth of the nations into her,
…gifts of gratitude, not the avails of greed and injustice.

If debased Babylon was a city of unbearable lightness,
…superficiality and vanity
then the New Jerusalem is a sight of glory,
…this is a city infused with the weighty, presence of God

And note that this is a city with walls and gates,
…but the gates are never closed.
Those gates are named after the twelve tribes of Israel,
…because it is Israel’s story that gains access to this city,
and the city is erected on the foundation of the twelve apostles,
…rooted in the gospel of Jesus and his Kingdom.

But the gates are never closed.
…This is a city of radical hospitality,
…this is a city of welcome.

And it is a gardened city,
…with a river of the water of life,
…bright as crystal,
…cascading from the thrown of God and the Lamb
…right down the middle of the city.
On both sides of this life-giving river grew the tree of life,
…producing twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month,
…a city of sustenance, a sustainable city,
…a city of urban gardening.
And here is the bit that blows me away,
…while the fruit is good for eating
…(unlike a tree we meet at the very beginning of our story in a different garden),
…the leaves of this tree were for the healing of the nations.
Those very nations that fornicated with Babylon,
…those very nations that wept over Babylon’s collapse,
…those very nations subject to the same judgement as Babylon,
…come to this city of God for healing.

No more trees felled for battering rams
…to lay siege to other cities.
No more trees cut for sailing masts
…to power colonial warships.
No more trees pulped for propganda
…to fuel the fires of ethnic cleansing and ideology.

This tree is for life.
This tree is for the healing of the nations.
This tree is for shalom.

While Babylon paints a picture of the brokenness of our urban reality,
…the New Jerusalem is a vision of urban life restored.
While Babylon depicts our urban present,
…the New Jerusalem gives us a vision of a possible urban future.
While Babylon captures our urban nightmare,
…the New Jerusalem offers us an urban dream.
While Babylon embodies our most distorted desires,
…the New Jerusalem fulfills our deepest and most abiding longings.

My friends, I don’t know how I could continue to survive in Babylon,
…if I didn’t have a vision of Jerusalem.
I don’t know how I could face the urban brokenness of the present,
…without a hopeful vision of an urban future.

In this vision,
…St. John is offered a glimpse of the Holy City,
…he is offered a glimpse of urban life under the banner of covenantal renewal,
…just beyond the range of normal sight he can see a city
……of unspeakable beauty,
……of shared abundance,
……of hospitable welcome,
……of homecoming in the temple of the Lord.

And maybe he can hear a voice singing:

My kingdom’s built with the blood of my son
selfless sacrifice for everyone,
faith, hope, love and harmony.

So, all you slaves, be set free,
come on out my child and come home to me,
we will dance, we will rejoice,
if you can hear me than follow my voice.

And to hear that voice,
…to join that dance,
…to come home to Zion,
…is to live with that vision before us,
……to work towards the coming City of God,
………in the face of the Babylon in which we live,
………seeking the peace of this city in hope of the city to come.

Amen.

This fall, Brian Walsh will be teaching a new course at Trinity College in Toronto entitled Film, Prophecy & Culture. Registrations are limited, so if you’re interested, get on board soon!

Humans are story-telling animals. We find our identity, memory, vision and our meaning through the narratives of our lives. While the church has been a foundational story telling institution, it has clearly been eclipsed in the last half century by various forms of mass media, and most notably through cinema.

In this course we will use the Toronto International Film Festival as our classroom. Engaging in a two-way dialogue between film and Christian theology, students will develop a biblically theological understanding of contemporary film. We will explore the prophetic, pastoral, liturgical and theological contribution that contemporary cinema can make to Christian reflection and praxis in a late modern socio-historical context.

Format: This course will begin on the evening of Sunday, September 11 and run daily until the evening of Saturday, September 17 with four more seminars arranged throughout the rest of the semester.

Note: Students will be responsible for the cost of their own tickets for the Toronto International Film Festival.

For full description of this course consult the TST website or contact the instructor.

This year’s keynote speakers are Ched Myers and Elaine Enns. Their work with Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries focuses on building capacity for biblical literacy, church renewal, and faith-based witness for justice.

From August 5-7, participants will explore the theme of ”Urban Agriculture and the Peace of the City” through hands-on workshops, challenging keynote lectures, practical gardening, singing, campfires, cooking, conversation and more. Visit our web site for more information about workshops and speakers.

www.practicingresurrection.com

Ched and Elain have long been committed to faith-based peace and justice efforts such as Christian Peacemaker Teams, Borderlinks, the Catholic Worker movement, Witness for Peace, and the Servant Leadership Schools.

There’s a lot of interest in this year’s conference, so register early at www.practicingresurrection.com

It has been about home from the beginning.
…The very beginning,
…the beginning of all beginnings,
…was about home.
……A good home,
……a rich home,
……a home of blessing,
……a creational home,
……home with God.

And when homebreaking raises its violent face,
…the homemaking God makes covenant.
The homemaking God embraces the homebreaker,
…with eyes wide open.

The promise was of a homeland,
…the promise to Abraham
…the promise to the patriarchs
…the promise to the slaves
…the promise to exiles.

Homelessness would never have the last word
…Homelessness would always give way to homecoming.

And Jesus came proclaiming that the homecoming of God was at hand,
…exile was over,
…the promise was fulfilled,
…and the poor hear good news.

………So they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

…The forces of homelessness rendered Jesus most finally homeless,
……the homelessness of the grave.
…Some folks are afraid of home.
…Some folks will defend their facist architecture,
……their self-enclosed constructs of home,
……their hierarchies of in and out,
………worthy and unworthy,
………us and them,
………privileged and lowly,
………unto death.
But homelessness can never have the last word,
…homelessness gives way to homecoming
…the grave gives up the dead,
…and resurrection proclaims a homecoming
…that no one could have imagined.

This is Paul’s story,
…this is his song,
…and this is his homemaking project
…in his letter to the Romans
(or at least it is one take on this letter).

In the face of an imperial home of slaves and freemen,
…Paul is a slave of Christ.
In the face of imperial homemaking myths of the gods,
…Paul retells the story of Israel,
…rooted in the story of Jesus.
In the face of a home that has a lineage rooted in Augustus,
…Paul speaks of Jesus, heir of David.
In the face of a gospel proclaimed from the court of Caesar,
…Paul proclaims the gospel of God.
In the face of an imperial home subject to the lordship of the emperor,
…Paul announces that the risen one is the Lord of all.
In the face of a home rooted in Roman justice and fidelity to the empire,
…Paul insists that in the gospel of Christ, the justice of God is revealed,
…from faithfulness to faithfulness.
And in the face of a home of hierachical, class and ethnic division,
…Paul calls the believers to associate with the lowly,
…extend hospitality to strangers,
…embrace Gentile and Jew alike.

And so Paul calls the community to be the home of God,
…a place where whole lives,
……embodied lives,
…are presented as living sacrifices;
…a site of worship and transformation;
…a body of family members, each with gifts for the upbuilding of the whole;
…a community of homemaking virtues
……of love and hospitality,
……of generosity and compassion,
……of rejoicing and weeping,
…a community of shalom and harmony.

But this is homemaking in the shadow of empire,
…so be careful around the authorities,
…subject yourself and their laws to the only law that can make for home,
……the law of love,
…recognizing that the night of homelessness is far gone,
…and the day is near.

So live in the day!
Be a people of the light, not the dark.
Build a home together that can stand the light of day,
…that has nothing to hide.
And do not hide those who are weak in your midst.
…Do not avert your gaze from the struggling sister or the fallen brother.
…You see, this is a house where all are welcome,
……because this is the house that the covenant God is building.
…This is a house where all are welcome,
……because this is the house of Jesus.

Does the empire exclude the powerless?
Does the empire render them homeless because they have no standing in society?
Then be a community that embraces the powerless,
…welcome the weak,
…build up your neighbour,
…transform her homelessness into homecoming.
That is the path of Christ,
…that is the imitation of Christ,
…that is the scandal of Christ.

Welcome one another because Christ has welcomed you.
…It really is that simple.
…That’s been the story throughout this whole letter.
…Christ became the suffering servant of the Jews
……in order to fulfill the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
…The homemaking sacrifice of the Messiah fulfills the promises
……and the nations sing praise.
…The promise was always one of homecoming for all nations,
……for all creation,
……for the restoration of the loving homemaking rule of God.

That’s the power of the gospel.
…That’s the power,
…that’s the mighty power,
…that’s the power of the gospel.

That’s the power of God dwelling with us in Christ.
That’s the home restoring power of the resurrection.
That’s the embracive, welcoming, forgiving, healing power of gospel.

And that is the power that has taken hold of Paul’s life.
…That is the gospel that he has proclaimed
……from Jerusalem all the way to Illlyricum.
…That is the power that has given birth to alternative communities,
……an alternative body politic,
……an alternative homecoming
…throughout the eastern regions of the Roman empire.
That is the gospel that has been shaping house churches,
……alternative homes rooted in an alternative story,
……homes of welcome imitating the embrace of their Lord,
……bodies of inclusion in the face of the exclusions of the empire.
That is the gospel that gives birth to a generosity and loyalty
…of Gentiles to Jews.
That is the gospel born of the root of Jesse and now bearing the fruit
…of economic blessing from the far reaches of the empire
…to the suffering and impoverished Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.
That is the homemaking gospel of Jesus Christ,
…and Paul is a careful and bold steward of that gospel,
…a minister of the homecoming kingdom of God.

And yet … and yet, Paul himself seems to be perpetually homeless.
…He is Paul of Tarsus,
……but he never names Tarsus as home.
…He is a Jew of Jews, a Pharisee born of the tribe of Benjamin,
……but Jerusalem is not his home.
…He is a Roman citizen,
……but Rome is not his home.

All roads lead to Rome it is said.
…If there is to be “home” in the empire,
…then surely Rome is that home.
…If home is a place of centredness,
…then surely Rome is the centre of all things.
All roads lead to Rome.
…Rome is the destination.
…Rome is the site of arrival.
But not for Paul.

All roads lead to Rome,
…but Paul’s road leads through Rome.
Rome is no more the centre of Paul’s universe
…than is Jerusalem.
Paul writes to reimagine the shape of home at the very heart of the empire.
But he writes from the road.
…He writes as a sojourner,
……on the way home
……and making home along the way.
…He writes as an emissary of a home not yet realized.
…He writes as one exiled from home,
……deeply not at home,
……even as he calls forth a home-making community
…….wherever the gospel is bearing fruit.

Home is not a place of arrival.
Home is a way of living together on the way.

…Incurable homewreckers all,
…the invitation remains,
…come home.

Come home and be a community of homemaking.
Come home and be a community of healing.
Come home and be a community of forgiveness.

…The path may well be one of betrayal and failure,
…a path where it all went wrong,
…but we’ll stand before the Lord of song,
…with nothing on our tongue but Hallelujah.
…A cold and broken Hallelujah,
…but Hallelujah nonetheless.
………Amen.

by Allan Reeve

What if Jesus were born in Canada today?

To be true to the story, he would most certainly be born an indigenous native Canadian. He would be of a tribe out on the fringe of the Empire. He’d live within a day’s travel of the capital – say within an Otter’s flight – putting him perhaps in a community in Northern Quebec?

It’s been seven generations since his people have drifted from their traditional ways. Slowly at first, they lost their trust in the land as the source of security. Slowly they began to depend upon the machines and tinned foods and coin of the realm that eventually invaded every aspect of their lives.

Mary and Joe remember the stories their grandparents told them. They remember trips stolen away from school where they were shown how to negotiate the waters, get what was needed from the land, use everything to good purpose, watch the stars, the birds, the tracks that would tell them where they were, when they were, who they were. Sometimes they can even remember parts of the songs their grandparents sang.

So the legend goes – seven generations is the time for renewal, for rebirth, for hope – when ancient ways become new again. When a new path is found that will lead the people – Anishnabe – for seven generations still to come.

It was bad timing. It was perfect timing. Mary got pregnant just as the government orders came through for evacuation. Their town’s site would soon be deep under water. Their town was about to be flooded by the power damn under construction. They’d protested and fought against it in courts. They’d prayed against it since they were children. They resisted – and held out – staying while others gave up and left – hoping for a last minute court injunction.

But when Mary was just about due to deliver – Joseph had a dream. The visitor told him to go. Told him that the journey they were about to begin would be a great unwinding of the circle – starting small and reaching far beyond any horizons he could imagine. He would name his son “Singer of old Songs”.

Mary was also visited. She got the message that the babe in her belonged to the past, and belonged to the future. She would know the suffering of her people in the birth and death of the life in her womb. But with this bad news came also a strange and powerful joy that didn’t let her worry but provided an incredible, calm, trust in what was to come.
***
Maybe it was partly the story that had reached her of her sister’s recent delivery. Elizabeth had given birth to a boy. Months before, while they both carried, they had shared notions and intuitions of the Maker moving within them, certain intuitions of a season not seen for countless moons. They’d laughed it off as hormones and the crazed thoughts of pregnant women everywhere. What women didn’t feel that the child within them was special like no other?

But when Elizabeth’s husband had announced the baby’s name as “John” the babe started wailing and didn’t stop wailing. It had deafened them. Neighbours offered advice. Town nurses talked of sedatives. It was only during the naming ceremony – that everyone present got a story to tell. The ancient, croaking, hoarse-voiced midwife had interrupted – at the critical time when the parents were to provide the name – she’d cried out over the cries of the babe “his name is Trailbreaker”. And the babe was quiet. Hadn’t cried since – Mary had been told.

***
Not everyone was going to the new location. Despite the sales job they’d been given about the new place – better schools, better healthcare, better sanitation and water and work – many had decided it was time to try city life. Many had decided to join family in other northern fringe towns.

Mary, watching from the Otter’s small window, saw the homes she’d grown up in, the school she’d trained in, the church she’d prayed in, all shrink small and smaller as the plane rose off the ground, made one last arc over the town, and it was all left – memories drowned –behind her.
***
So, Mary and Joe boarded the Otter and headed south with the others. The weather was supposed to be clear. But the storms had become more and more unpredictable with every passing year. Before they’d been in the air an hour, the pilot had announced that they were in for some rough riding. Mary worried that the jumps and jerks might bring her labour on. But one look at Joseph’s strained face changed that. She’d let him do the worrying. She’d be strong and calm – claiming the gift the visitor had offered.

It got a lot worse before it got better. And it only got better when the pilot gave up and decided to land at the power dam construction site. He knew there’d be empty barracks there for his passengers. He’d flown the crew out for the holidays just days before.

There was still a skeleton crew left behind to run the place. They’d stayed for the double overtime pay – to keep the heat on and fuel in the machines – keep them running so the whole place wouldn’t freeze solid.

The shift boss met the travelers in the mess hall and assigned them barracks. The cooks got busy putting on coffee and chili and sandwiches. Then the boss got a look at Mary – doubled up in pain – and Joseph’s pleading gaze. He got the dishwashers to go clear some space in the food storage shed. It was the cleanest place in the camp – and there was room because supplies were low. Only trouble was – the camp nurse and company doctor had left on the last flight out. He apologized to the couple and showed them to their digs. Maybe the baby would wait?

There happened to be an international team of scientists at the station. They were passing through on their way to the arctic – studying frequency variations in the aurora borealis as indicators of global warming. They offered up their emergency first aid supplies. Pain killers, sterile swabs, and a heart monitor. Totally unnecessary as it turned out- but the family accepted their gifts.

At the station that night there also happened to be an Innu hunting party blown in by the storm. Further south than they usually traveled they didn’t really need the shelter or supplies. They were accustomed to getting by with few comforts. But they’d decided to go see the construction site. They wanted to be able to tell their children about the place where everything changed. About the place where the river’s power was sold to the south in exchange for the last of their memories. They were old. Their children didn’t know what they knew. Their grandchildren would never know. They wanted to see the place where this final change would happen.

What they found instead was a couple in need. The grandmother with them had been at many births and she took things in hand. As she worked to prepare she sang songs in a dialect from which Mary and Joe could only catch a word or two – the odd phase rang familiar – but the comfort of the woman’s song ran deep within them. An old man, her husband sat on a milk crate in the corner keeping rhythm with a shaker he’d produced from deep parka pockets.

Not many in the camp slept that night. The winds howled and everyone was sure that it was Mary’s cries they heard. No one dared break in on them until finally they could stand it no longer. The storm was raging. They woke the shift boss to go find out. “We’re worried about how they’re doing out there in that shack in this storm!” they explained.
“What storm?” he asked stumbling over to his office window. There was a luminous glow – green, blue, white, orange filling the pane. They all crowded to the window in wonder.

The wind had blown the storm over – and now a still quiet had descended upon the camp. The stars pierced the black night like high trumpet notes while the sky danced with colour celebrating the limitless universe filling their eyes to overflowing, making their hearts jump up and their guts boom deep – all without a sound.

They knew. As if with one mind, their gaze now turned to the storage shed where they saw a dull low light in the window. Without a word they all – every one of them – headed for the door – without stopping for parkas they walked out into the night and to the door of the shed where they froze stiff – still – for a century – until finally the shift boss reached out and turned the handle and they one by one filed into the room.

It was no room. It had become a sanctuary. In the dim light the ceiling seemed to soar above them. The crates and boxes were ancient stone pillars rising in grandeur. The four people priests at an altar where something new lay quietly breathing among blankets in an empty banana box. You could almost hear her tiny breath – the whispered awe was so thick among them.
***
They way they explained it later – to friends and family and strangers who might listen – “it was like the baby was aware of my presence. I felt like the child was mine. Like I felt when my own kids were born. This child – whose parents I’d never met before that night – gave me such a sense of belonging in that room. Gave me a sense that time had stopped and the whole universe was spinning around us – with us standing there at its centre.

It’s crazy talk I know. But the funny thing was – over breakfast when we talked it over – we all felt the same. We all just knew that something had happened that would change everything. We were changed. Don’t ask me how. I just know that now – since that night – I’m watching and searching and aware of things I’d never noticed before that night. There’s something new inside me I never knew before – or had long forgotten. I know we’ll be hearing good news coming about that girl one day.”

For Roxanne
With thanks for the riff to John Bird’s story of the same name

Justice and Creation:

a double book launch for

“The Justice Project” (Ed. Brian McLaren et. al.)
“The Gift of Creation” (Ed. Norman Wirzba)

with contributor Dr. Sylvia C. Keesmaat

Commentaries by:
Bruxy Cavey (The Meeting House)
Ron Kuipers (Institute for Christian Studies)

Music by Michael Iafrate, Alison Hari Singh, and Zoe Thiessen and The Hildegard Project (featuring Billy Gekas).

Facebook event info here.