(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

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 Jake Aikenhead

So, today is Valentine’s day….

Rest assured I have no intentions of commenting on this commercial holiday, either for good or for ill, except to say that a blog I often read paid tribute to Valentine’s day this week, and that I found the content of this tribute to be of interest. They posted a series of anonymous and love-related confessions. Some were hopeful, some were clearly the product of a broken heart, but one of them particularly fixed my attention, and I will repeat it here verbatim:

I once returned a love letter to the girl who wrote it.
I returned it with all of the spelling mistakes corrected in red ink!
I was a jerk!

Perhaps we can relate to one side or the other of this love-letter exchange. We poured our heart out to someone and were met with cynicism, indifference and hurt. Or, having received this kind of a gift, we coldly and promptly pulled out our red pens and wielded them like knives, cutting it to pieces.

If you find that you identify with this confession, then you are in good company. You see, this was so often the posture of our spiritual ancestors. Responding to genuine acts of love with scorn – it’s in our history, if not our blood.

This history is utterly apparent in the book of Isaiah, which begins with a cosmic declaration of the fact that God has been spurned by his people:

Hear, O Heavens, and listen, O earth;
I reared children and brought them up,
But they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner,
And the donkey its master’s crib;
But Israel does not know,
Israel does not understand. (Is. 1:2-3)

And then, of course, there is the parable of the vineyard: “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it?” I planted it on a fertile hill, and I removed its stones. I planted the choicest vines… “Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?” (Is. 5:4) God extends himself, Israel turns away in disregard.

It’s actually quite painful to read.

And these two vignettes account for only a fraction of the emotion that we encounter in Isaiah. The book in its entirety documents a kind of dramatic interplay between God and Israel, the movement of which has a responsive and almost physical quality; a sort of “you move here, I move there,” action and reaction structure. You could stage it as an argument between lovers that runs late into night. There is anger, repentance, and forgiveness. There are moments of close proximity and instances where the two parties couldn’t be further apart. At times, one can’t bear to look the other in the eye.

It is within the context of this relationship that Israel, newly returned from exile in Babylon, calls out to God. It is a call of distress. In the words of Walter Brueggemann, they have returned home to find that in their absence, Jerusalem was not simply “empty space.” So now there are all kinds of issues regarding land ownership, and there are issues regarding religious practice… in short, Israel doesn’t have a unified identity and Jerusalem is the centre of all dispute. It’s a mess.

So, to the God that they have so often abandoned, Israel lets out a cry for mercy, and they repent:

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” (Is. 64:6)

We’ve been jerks.

Of course, for anyone following the plot, this cry of repentance seems, well, half-hearted. Unsubstantial.

And given the history, we would expect that this so-called repentance would be met with indifference, and justifiably so. At least, that is how I would write it if I were the author of this drama. As the prophet tells us earlier, this is the nation that has made room in its bed for idols (Is. 57:8), which is the epitome of unfaithfulness.

They are not deserving of mercy.
Not after their idolatry, not after the whole vineyard fiasco.
Not in their current state of dispute and disunity.

But this is precisely the moment when God breathes into this broken people a new vision.

There is another love letter.
Another vision of what life could be like together.

Into the ruins of post-exile Jerusalem, God delivers a vision of a new city.
Indeed, he promises a new city.
And not just a new city, but complete cosmic renewal.

“Behold, I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth.” (Is. 65:17)

And then the prophet goes on to tell about the shape of this New Jerusalem:
The sound of weeping and crying will be heard in her no more.
And Israel will not labour in vain.
And they will not bear children who are doomed to misfortune.
And in this city their lives will have longevity.
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and enjoy their fruit.

Wow. They probably were not expecting this kind of a response. Complete, cosmic renewal.

I wonder if they would have been able to believe it.

And I must admit that I wonder, too, in my ingratitude and short-sightedness, if this vision is really what they were looking for.

What good is a promise of future peace and well-being, when there is an immediacy to the despair that makes it difficult to imagine that promise as a real possibility?

Well, I would like to suggest that this type of response to the vision of the New Jerusalem profoundly misses the point. And that is because this vision is not just about the redemption of the city. There is something else going on beneath the words of this promise.

When God responds to Israel’s plea with this vision, what we observe is an extension of abundant grace.

The kind of grace that will unquestionably fill every crack in Israel’s heart;
grace which promises redemption and promises renewal.

And the vision constitutes an extension of abundant grace because it comes from the God who unfolded the love-letter that Israel mockingly returned, sat down, wrote it out again, and sent it back.

Is this what they wanted?
It is everything and more.
It is what they deeply longed for, though their infidelity made it impossible to say so.

It is not until we imagine ourselves in God’s shoes that we understand the depth of this action. How could he possibly extend such grace to a rebellious people? Has he forgotten those callously returned letters already?

No. But he’s willing to.

Indeed, this is exactly what we hear at the beginning of the vision:

“Behold, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered nor come to mind.” (Is. 65:17)

The vision begins with a proclamation that the very structure of the relationship between Israel and God is going to be made new.

“Remember that time you returned my love letter?” God asks, and they stare at the ground because there’s nothing to say.

And then God’s voice again: “neither do I.”

But the beautiful and crushing thing about this extension of grace is the recognition that the God of Israel does not have amnesia. The former things have not been forgotten in the sense that they can’t be remembered, they have been forgotten because God has resolved to bear the pain and say nothing more.

And that is precisely why I can put my faith in this vision, because of the immeasurable lengths that God has already gone to in order to ensure that it comes to fruition.

Talk is cheap. But God’s words here are nothing short of extravagant.
They are, at their very core, words of self-giving love.

I can believe in this vision of the New Jerusalem because it is not a word that God speaks flippantly.

It is a vision that he enacts in real space and in real time, and the very act of giving this vision to Israel comes with a cost.
That is how the re-creating happens.

This vision of a new heavens, a new earth and a new Jerusalem is not simply a vision, it is a commitment.

By this point in our lives, many of us have probably learned, or at least begun to learn, that relationships are not a one-way street. And so, this discussion about God’s relentless commitment to Israel (and so to us) begs the question: what is our part in all of this? What does God ask of us in order to make this thing work?

In truth, I think that we know the answer to this question. But lest we slip, let us hear it again:

“To do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with the Lord our God.” (Micah 6:6-8)

“To let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)

We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind; and to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Justice. Mercy. Righteousness. Love.

This is our end of the bargain.
This is what our merciful creator has called us to be about.
And this is most certainly our role in the New Jerusalem.
For it is a vision that God has promised, but it is also a vision in which we play a central part.

And that is a very, very good thing. Because though I am sometimes inclined to cry out “when?” and, “how long?!” I have also experienced the truth that we are invited to partake in and work toward this vision in the here and now.

When we become people of justice and mercy, we glimpse it.
When we devote ourselves to righteousness and love, we can start to see the shape of the New Jerusalem that God, in his unfathomable grace, has promised.

Today we celebrate just this sort of thing. We celebrate the anniversary of a place of refuge in our city, The Gateway: a shelter for homeless men, a drop-in for marginalised folks.

But it’s not the building that we celebrate, we rejoice in all of the justice and mercy and righteousness and love that has bounced around within that building’s walls and which has reverberated out into the streets.

And in this vein, we give thanks for all of the good people who work very concretely toward a vision of a new city, and for the love that has been shown and the justice that has been done through them in God’s name.

If you ever have the pleasure of working at the Gateway you’ll be privileged to don a blue collared T-shirt or a hooded sweatshirt on which is written, “The hand of God in the Heart of the city.”

And there will be days when you are utterly unworthy of that phrase.

But when you think about it, that pretty much says it. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.

To be God’s hands and feet in the places that cry out for healing.

So, with the graceful gift of a promise for renewal, let us go forth today in love and in hope. And let’s take that tagline with us too.

Wherever we go, may we live up to the calling of being God’s hands and feet, and may we be people whose lives are a loving response to the grace-filled vision of the New Jerusalem.

God has been sending us love letters.

Now he sends us as his love letter to the world.

Joanna Manning is going to be ordained a priest. The author of Is the Pope Catholic: A Woman Confronts her Church and Take Back the Truth: Papal Power and the Religious Right is going to be a priest.

Obviously, not a Roman Catholic priest.

No, our dear sister was ordained to the ministry of the deaconate in the Anglican Church last May and will be ordained priest this Sunday. And when someone from the Wine Before Breakfast community receives the laying-on-of-hands from a bishop, it is our practice to get our hands in there first.

So that is what we are going to do at Wine Before Breakfast. We are going to send Joanna on her retreat and towards her ordination with our blessings and with our prayers.

Now it is an interesting thing that Joanna, of all people, is going to be a priest. It is going to be her responsibility to attend to the liturgies of the church, to make sure that the Eucharist and the high holy days of the liturgical calendars are duly observed. And yet no one knows better than Joanna that God is sick of liturgy with blood-stained hands.

The prophet Isaiah says that God can’t endure this shit anymore – offerings, incense, Sabbaths, solemn assemblies, appointed festivals. God hates it all, these rich and finely performed liturgies are a burden to God. I mean, we believe that God is ‘omnipotent’ and all, but Isaiah says that these liturgies make God weary, they sap the divine strength!

Isn’t that curious?

The only thing that can strip God of divine power is the liturgy of God’s people!

And then the prophet comes to a devastating conclusion. Speaking in the voice of God, Isaiah says,

When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.

I will not listen. I will not look.

The divine eyes and ears are closed to a people who pray fervently, who present wonderful liturgies, but whose hands are full of blood.

No one knows this better than Joanna Manning.

Isaiah has a solution to this problem, however. It is a covenantal solution. It isn’t rocket science, it isn’t complicated. It is profoundly simple, deeply healing, and radically true. But it isn’t easy:

Cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.

Six verbs: cease, learn, seek, rescue, defend, plead.

One negative, five positive.

Cease, repent, turn away from evil, and then direct your life to the good, justice, the oppressed, the orphan and the widow.

It’s actually the only way to get the blood off of our hands.

And so as a community we lay our own blood-stained hands on our sister, consecrating her to continue a ministry of justice, indeed, a ministry that just might occasion the renewal of liturgies and worship that is worthy of our God.

Come and pray.
Pray for Joanna.
Pray for the church.
Pray for justice.
Pray for healing.
Pray for forgiveness.

Joanna Manning’s ordination details:
November 27 at 4.30 pm
All Saints Kingsway Anglican Church
2850 Bloor St West | Toronto, ON

All are welcome. Members of the WBB community will be participating in the service.

by Stephen Edwards

Let us pray,
we stand before you, Lord
in the midst of our city, suffering
with wickedness,
…we are well acquainted

We are naked, Lord
Our shame is revealed

Our sister Sodom
…who sought to know your angels
Our sister Sodom
…in whom not 10 righteous could be found
Our sister Sodom
…on whom you rained down fire
Our sister Sodom
…a byword in our mouths
Our sister Sodom
…who is not so different from us
Our sister Sodom
…who is not so far from us
Our sister Sodom
…who shines beside our sin and disgrace

She was overthrown
…We could not look away
…We cannot look away

We don’t want to flee to the mountains
…We want the city!
We fear your disaster there
…We want the city!
Where else will we hoard our wealth?
…We want the city!
Where else will we lure our lovers?
…We want the city!
How else could we ignore the poor?
…We want the city!
How else could we build our pride?
…We want the city!
It is only a little one
…but we still want the city!

[silent and spoken confession and repentance for the sin of the city and prayers for its salvation]

We have not the strength to flee
We have not the strength to stay
“Seal our hearts and break our pride
For we’ve no where to stand and no where to hide”

[silent and spoken prayers for spiritual discipline, relationships, stewardship, and unity]

Help us to remember your covenant
Help us to bear our shame
“Seal our hearts and break our pride
For we’ve no where to stand and no where to hide”

[silent and spoken prayers for God’s in-breaking into our lives with strength, and for those whom we know especially need this]

We want your city!
…Strength to bear our shame
We want your city!
…Strength to get up
We want your city!
…Strength to share our wealth
We want your city!
…Strength to host the stranger
We want your city!
…Strength to shelter the poor
We want your city!
…Strength for delivery from evil
May it rain down upon us!
…The greatest of all cities

A reflection on Matthew 16:13-28 delivered March 15, 2011 at Wine Before Breakfast

It may be true that “much depends on dinner”, but in the world of housing, everything depends on location, location, location.

Real estate figures prominently in today’s gospel passage. Jesus and the disciples are just outside Caesarea Philippi, a complex that today would be called a “prime waterfront location” for the monster homes and temples of the Herodian family. The Herodians are the puppet rulers of Palestine installed by the Roman Empire to create the illusion of local self-rule. They got to develop the waterfront properties as a reward for pandering to Roman interests while thousands were homeless and dispossessed. And like the exclusive real estate of our own time, these properties have guards . . . and gates.

It is near the gates of the Herodian family compound that Jesus chooses to reveal something to the disciples. The Greek word for reveal is “apocalypto” and for centuries people have been so mesmerized by Jesus that they look for a revelation about his personal identity and overlook the importance of the location. The disciples turn Jesus’ question about the Son of Man into a guessing game of titles and “name-that-prophet”, concerned only with who the Son of Man is – not what the Son of Man will do with enclaves like Caesarea Philippi.

In fact, people have been playing this game throughout Matthew’s gospel. Herod identifies Jesus as the avenging ghost of John the Baptist (Matthew 14). And in Matthew 11, John the Baptist asks Jesus whether he is “the one to come” – or will it be someone else.

Jesus’ reply to John the Baptist sheds some light on today’s passage. Tell John that miracles are being worked, but then he adds: “Blessed are those who don’t stumble because of me”. In other words, blessed are those who aren’t distracted by wonders and titles, but who are ready to follow the Way to a new world – a world without guards or gates.

Maybe too much has been made of Peter’s messianic recognition. After all, Jesus has already been recognized by the Canaanite woman as the “Son of David” in the previous chapter. And when Peter does use the “M” word, notice how quickly Jesus shifts the focus from messianic identity to the keys and building blocks of a new society where what is loosed and bound in heaven will be loosed and bound on earth.

To obsess about identity is to stumble and overlook the significance of what the gates of exclusion represent in the first century – and the twenty-first century. Jesus has chosen this location to underscore the struggle to smash such gates once and for all. Like most struggles, there will be casualties, and for the first time, Jesus reveals that he will be one of those casualties. Talk of gate crashing and casualties disconcerts Peter and turns him from being a building block into a stumbling block.

But truthfully, most of us would rather follow Peter than follow Jesus. It’s easier to speculate about Jesus’ identity than to breach the gates of privilege. It’s easier to colour-code Jesus’ sayings to uncover the “real man”, and more fun to hypothesize about his relationship with Mary Magdalene – than it is to pass an Affordable Housing Act in the Parliament of Canada.

So the gates remain standing. In some cities, the gates of exclusive property stand next to homeless shelters. The gates stay up while Toronto public housing is governed by a Herod-like puppet – and thousands have no housing at all.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Because Jesus also says that for those committed to God’s justice, another world is possible. And not only is another world possible, it’s possible in the lifetime of a generation.

Think about it. The women who launched the first International Women’s Day in 1911, they struggled, there were casualties, but they did not “taste of death” till they won the right to vote. Think of the labour movement in 1911, they struggled, there were many casualties, but they did not “taste of death” till they won the right to collective bargaining. And this generation can testify to the courage of those who have taken up the cross of justice and changed the world in a single lifetime.

And so the real question isn’t who-is-Jesus, but who is willing to take up a cross.

The real question isn’t who-is-Jesus, but who is willing to defy the Herods and say to the Caesars: “Do your worst, we’re not afraid to speak out”.

The real question isn’t who-is-Jesus, but who is willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with the angels and storm the gates of hell.

The real question isn’t who-is-Jesus . . . it’s who are you?

A reflection on Matthew 12:22-37, Van Morrison’s “The Healing Game” and a poem by Rilke delivered on February 8, 2011 at Wine Before Breakfast

My favourite poem goes like this:

No one lives his life.

Disguised since childhood,
haphazardly assembled
from voices and fears and little pleasures,
we come of age as masks.

Our true face never speaks

Somewhere there must be storehouses
Where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armor or old carriages
or clothes hanging limply on the walls.

All paths lead there,
to the repository of unlived things.
–Rainer Maria Rilke

I love this poem for its truth, even while I hope that it’s a lie.

I hope that when the poet observes that no one is living their life, that everyone is wearing a mask, while their real selves are lying empty and uninhabited in storehouses and abandoned barns, I hope that he’s lamenting something we’re in danger of, but not totally resigned to.

I hope my real life isn’t hanging limply on a wall, a cast off shell…even if I often feel, as he says, haphazardly assembled, fitted together by bits and pieces of man-made façade.

I hope that it doesn’t have to be the way the poet says that it is.

In today’s passage, I think we find Jesus showing the way back to the place where real lives were laid away, to the repository of unlived things. He’s reminding his crowd of listeners that they are not two selves but one; they are not masks and hidden faces, no coveralls, no make-up, no faking.

Only fruit.

Fruit that grows naturally out of a tree.

Fruit that fits its source.

An outside that matches its inside.

Jesus is pretty clear at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and again here in chapter 12, that what comes out of you matters. That whatever and whoever you are is made known by what comes out of you. That whatever is in your heart is bound to come tumbling out of your mouth sooner or later. That, in fact, your true face always speaks, whether you like it to or not. That your body is a storehouse for good or evil and your fruit will allow those around you to know which.

Is it ironic then, or only more tragic, that this story begins with a man who cannot see or speak? A man so possessed by the devil that very little can get into him, and even less can get out. If what comes out of your mouth matters, then the fact that this man has no words shows how completely he is consumed and inhabited by Satan. Satan has sealed him up. He is locked up in Satan’s house, as it were. The tree being so bad that fruit cannot grow.

When Jesus heals the man, the crowd is divided: some of them are amazed. Some others blaspheme. The usual suspects. The Pharisees. Jesus knows what they’re thinking before they say a word… He can see the truth of what’s in them even before they open their mouths.

They call him a son of Satan.

There is, of course, no shortage of reckless interpretation on Jesus’ strong reaction — Especially this business about blasphemy against the Spirit being the unpardonable sin. After a rather cursory read, it seems to me that a great deal of these interpretations break the cardinal rule of New Testament studies, the first lesson and maybe the only thing I remember from my one and only class in biblical literature: the importance of CONTEXT.

There is a lot going on in this passage…

A sick person healed.

A demon exorcised.

A kingdom divided.

A strong man robbed.

A spirit blasphemed.

Some trees bearing fruit.

Some tongues being tamed.

…all in preparation for the day of judgment.

When some people will be permanently condemned.

We might be tempted to follow any one of these stories as the main event. Tracking them to other places in the scriptures where more is said on each subject, and sometimes in very different rhetorical and social settings.

But Matthew puts them together. And I think he means for them to hang that way. To cohere. They’re not so disconnected as they might first appear. The warning about blasphemy against the Spirit is not easily unmoored from the rest of this story, to be branded about like a dangerous sword condemning all manner of carelessness. When Jesus warns the Pharisees of the gravity of their error, he is talking specifically about their illogical conclusion that his healing must be the work of Satan.

The Pharisees have been watching Jesus heal people all along. They’ve have had time to think about this particular miracle, in between hearing about it and then confronting Jesus. But they still resolve that Jesus must be in league with the devil.

Blasphemy is as simple as that: calling the work of the Spirit the work of Satan. A simple, not flippant, but persistent misapprehension about who the Spirit is and what the Spirit is capable of.

It’s simply preposterous to watch a man, once blind and mute, restored to wholeness, and to call that the work of the devil. It’s plainly ridiculous, that demons would cast out demons. That Satan might evict himself from a body, vacate his power, and weaken his kingdom.

It would be as if the strongman left his house unguarded. His doors unlocked, even wide open. Vulnerable, susceptible, and defenseless against the thief who was coming to rob him.

At first it seems strange that Jesus calls Satan the strongman. But there’s a certain irony in calling him this, since Jesus knows that strongman is going to be tied and bound, his house ransacked and plundered. The thief is stronger, if only by his wit. The robber subdues the strongman, now weak, and steals his possessions – those people he had literally possessed.

Jesus is the stronger man.

Even so, he doesn’t seem surprised that some people will doubt him. Jesus is willing to forgive those who don’t believe that he’s the Son of God. He’s human. He’s flesh and blood and standing in front of them. There’s room for confusion. He doesn’t look like much – all that redemption he has to offer hidden underneath his dirty clothes. People are apt to be mistaken about who he is and what he’s up to. But the work of the Spirit should be obvious; even instantly recognizable…

Here she is again.
Back on the corner again.
Back where she belongs
Where she’s always been
Everything the same
It doesn’t ever change
She’s never been away
from the healing game.

That kind of magic can only come from God. God’s in the healing game. God heals because it’s in God to heal. It’s the outpouring of who God is. We might even say that healing is the fruit of God’s tree. Maybe it will be something like those trees that will grow in the New Jerusalem in the end, and bring the healing of the nations.

Somewhere in the middle of his tirade, Jesus offers his listeners–and by extension you and I—a choice:

Gather with me. Or be Scattered.

And if this passage is about one thing instead of many.

And if God and Jesus and the Spirit are one, while Satan is Legion.

And if the fruit of their essence, is to heal people, to restore wholeness, while Satan’s impulse is to break people apart.

And if Jesus is teaching us about making our outsides match our insides, about the unity of our being.

THEN there’s something remarkable about this choice:

Gather with me. Gather yourselves up. All those pieces of you. All of your disguises. Your brokenness. Your assembled voices and fears and little pleasures. Those seemingly ill-matched threads of your existence. Gather them up. And become one. One tree. Bearing one kind of fruit. One with me.

Or else be scattered. A house divided. A brood of vipers, slithering in knotted, hissing chaos. A broken set of senses and abilities. Knicknacks and bric-a-brac in Satan’s crowded house.

Gather with me. Or be scattered.

So there is some logic to this passage, after all. It hinges on cohesion.

It’s about oneness.

About the truth that is in you being visible outside of you.

About wholeness. Whether its wholeness after healing. Or the wholeness of acting out of the deep truth that is within you.

About being either good or bad, but not both. Because to do two things at once is to do neither.

About whatever is in you saving you or condemning you.

When we’re more apt to live in masks and costumes, among smoke and mirrors, Jesus tells us there are no hypocrites. Hypocrisy is only bad fruit.

Back in Matthew, right after all of this, the Pharisees ask Jesus for some proof that he is who he says he is. Their blasphemy deepens. The tree is standing in front of them, and they can’t see its fruit for the leaves. Their challenge to him shows their own fruit, tiny, wrinkled and bruised. Their words, whatever they are, they matter. Our words, whatever they are, they matter too.

I’ve been gnawing on the Luke 7:17-35 passage over the last month. Especially verse 22.

John is in Herod’s dungeon wondering when Jesus will depose Herod and establish a Godly kingship on earth. He remembers the Isaiah 61 prophecy but doesn’t get the bigger picture.

John has in mind unfortunates like himself, jailed because those in authority don’t like what he is saying. “Brood of vipers!” indeed. We’ll throw him in the pit until he pays us a little more respect.

Jesus has another sort of prison and prisoners in mind – those prisoners of sin and death, from all times and places. Which includes John and us. But he has to go to the cross to accomplish that and, as John the Apostle so aptly puts it, his time has not yet come at this point in the gospel narrative.

But come it does. And those who were expecting a coronation got a crucifixion instead. Good Friday thrusts a sword through the heart of Mary and many. It’s not supposed to end like this.

As Frederick Buechner puts it “the miracle of Good Friday was that there were no miracles”. God doesn’t pull a sleight of hand. No last minute rescue by angels. No coming down off the cross lke the mockers had requested. Just “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Then silence. And the immanence of death.

And a little later, a spear thrust in the side – just to make sure the death sentence had been carried out. Blood and water – clot and serum – confirm the worst.

Jesus’ reference to Jonah’s “three days” has come into play in a manner no one could have guessed.

It’s not supposed to end like this. How often have we said or thought that when our expectations of God lie shattered on the ground. When our loved one surrenders their final breath to cancer. When a phone call delivers the most devastating news one can hear. When all hope is gone in an instant.

But the dawn of the third day comes – and with it resurrection. God is alive! – and so are we, more alive than we can imagine. And to our open mouth looked of astonishment and joy He says “Peace my child. With God all things are possible. I’m bigger than you can imagine.”

I think of Jesse Jackson, tears rolling down his face, standing in a crowd of people celebrating Obama’s victory. He was the last person Martin Luther King Jr. had spoken to that fateful April 4, 1968, just after 6 PM. King, standing on the balcony of the motel, had asked Jesse, standing below in
the parking lot, to join him for dinner – and added, jokingly, for Jesse not to wear blue jeans.

Then the crack of a high powered rifle. Then Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young cradling King as he lay dying. Young sobbing “Oh my God, my God, it’s all over” and Abernathy rebuking him “No it’s not over. Don’t you ever say that!”. Then the journey to the hospital and the inevitable pronouncement of death at 7:05 PM.

Even if King had survived, his brain had been starved for oxygen and his spine fractured. There was no way back or out. King was dead. His concluding words of his last sermon “I’ve seen the promised land” now took on prophetic import!

And here, 40 years later, it seemed as though they were being fulfilled. Barack Obama is not the Promised One, nor is his presidency the coming of the Promised Land, however much people might like to think they are. Yet still God has made a way out of no way and Ralph Abernathy’s “No, it’s not
over.” has been proven right.

African Americans and White Americans have together taken a big, bold step towards King’s dream, which is nothing less than Jesus aspirations for us all. I wonder how many thought of Psalm 126 that evening. The Kingdom has not come, but this’ll do until it does; hope
for the journey ahead. Water at a well.

Meanwhile, Jesus, having accomplished all things for our salvation and seated at the right hand of the Father looks at His church and asks “Are you the ones who come after me or do I look for another?” then answers His own question “No, there is no other. No Plan B. You’re it. Now get to work – and remember – I am with you always.”

Yes we can – through Christ who strengthens us. Let’s begin…

Frederick Harrison works at Crux Books in Toronto and is a member of the Wine Before Breakfast community.