Advent 3 - Back in Jerusalem

Isaiah 61: 1-11

So here we are - back in Jerusalem.

We were inspired back here by a prophet whose poetry could carry us on the desert journey back up the Euphrates through the heat...but even more whose images of what Jerusalem could be carried us beyond the limits of our exiled imagination.

We're back here and we are supposed to do something... supposed to make this place an embodiment of hope and justice, supposed to make this place a response to the grace and covenant bestowed on us, supposed to re-make this place shiny and luminous, high on a hill so other's will be drawn, supposed to get our hands unclean.

This wasn't the job we thought we were coming to.
This church isn't a place I think I can rebuild.
This suburb isn't a place where we any longer feel safe and known
This nation seems not to have a hope of legislating for justice
This world isn't a place to show your kids about humanity

Jerusalem - not what we'd expected.

And yet; and yet
we came back
we are here
Bablyon was easier but this is our place
we are called to rebuild
...in the knowledge we won't see it finished.

Let us go now to be co-builders of the Kingdom here.




PS This post also appears at lectionary.digitalorthodoxy.com