6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. 7And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. 8Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
9It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. 10For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.
-Isaiah 25:6-10
"I'm waiting for dinner," one of our guests said at Bible study tonight when prompted with the question "what are we waiting for." There is both humor and deep truth in this answer. The question meant to be answered on a deeper level, yet dinner was happening in about 30 minutes. This reflects a deep truth about waiting...it's hard!
The upcoming lectionary text for this Sunday contains a passage from Isaiah that speaks of a feast that is to be waited on (Incidentally enough, I preached a sermon on this for class last spring). This feast is greater than what we can possibly imagine. It is a celebration of the final victory of the Lord after a long period of anxious waiting.
Andrew Bird, one of the greatest and most creative singer/songwriter/whistler/violinists of our time, has a song about a celebratory feast at the end of times called "tables and chairs."
Hope is the operative word here. Hope for a bountiful feast. Hope for your first meal of the day. Hope for peace. Hope for equality. Hope for truth and justice to prevail for those who are oppressed. The results of this wait for hope is a celebratory feast for all to enjoy.
Our meals at Broad Street Ministry (particularly the No Barriers Dinner) are seen to many as a bountiful feast. The makeup of race and socio-economic class in the room give a taste of what a feast in the kingdom of God looks like. However, peace, equality, truth, and justice have not prevailed yet. There is always a level of anxiousness in our meals at BSM. We all recognize how rough our world is. Are we simply to just sit back and wait for things to get better before we can celebrate?
No. This wait is one of action. The hebrew origin of the word for "wait" here is "qava," which in its verb form here stands as an intensive, repeated action. Thus, a more accurate translation is "to look eagerly for." This hardly sounds like sitting and waiting to me! It's a reminder that we are in the "Kingdom Between the Times." The kingdom is here, yet not completely. Christ has come to liberate us from sin, yet problems still exist in our world. We have responsibility in this world to work towards peace, equality, truth, and justice. Then, when we just can't wait any more, the kingdom of God we have hoped for all our lives comes to free us from oppression and sin for good.
What does this kingdom look like? Who knows! That's where hope comes into play. Yet a bountiful feast is a wonderful way to imagine the joy found in this time. May we continue to work for the kingdom!
I know we're gonna meet someday in the crumbled financial institutions of this land
There will be tables and chairs
Pony rides and dancing bears
There'll even be a band
'cause listen after the fall there'll be no more countries
No currencies at all
We're gonna live on our wits
Throw away survival kits
Trade butterfly knives for adderal
And that's not all
Woah!
There will be snacks, there will
There will be snacks, there will
There will be snacks!
-Andrew Bird
Showing posts with label kingdom of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kingdom of God. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Psalms of the Street
ATTENTION: BLOG NAME HAS CHANGED TO "www.communitytrailblazer.blogspot.com"
IT IS NO LONGER: "www.psalmsofthestreet..."
I know this may be confusing, so PLEASE spread the word. I will explain the reasoning in this post.
I had a GREAT visit to Richmond this weekend, visiting my friends at Union Presbyterian Seminary (formerly Union-PSCE). I was very excited to share of my experience thus far, perhaps because I knew my peers could relate to and find some hope in my experience of such a vibrant urban church community.
As I explained my internship over and over again, I began to notice threads in the way I described it. The most common thread was my description of a church full of people from ALL walks of life. The more I described the demographic makeup of the Broad Street Ministry community the more I realized the significance of having rich, poor, young, and old in one building worshipping and fellowshipping together. As has been often mentioned, this demographic makeup is truly a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
I have been writing about Broad Street Ministry in my blog for over a month now, and only today did I realize I had been doing a great disservice by calling my blog "psalms of the street." See, I originally took the name from the bulletin on my first day of worshipping at Broad Street. I realized later that "psalms of the street" is the prayer card ministry that seeks to represent the voice of the community. These cards, written by people from every walk of life, are collected, prayed over, and put into a blog in order to express the voices of those who are voiceless. This blog is called Scribblings in the Sand. I invite you to view this blog, with the understanding that these prayers come DIRECTLY from the community at worship, represent people from every walk of life, and are meant to be treated with great discretion (personal information has been removed) and utmost respect. Christ came to give a voice to the voiceless, love to the unloved. Broad Street Ministry hopes to carry this desire out as the body of Christ, and prayer cards serve as an opportunity for those without a voice to be represented.
My role at Broad Street Ministry is NOT to represent the community myself. The community must be able to speak for themselves, since most of them NEVER have this opportunity. Therefore, my blog name is changing to:
communitytrailblazer.blogspot.com
My role at Broad Street Ministry is to be the pastoral welcoming presence to those who wish to become a part of the community. I meet with people who contact us wishing to volunteer or at least get to know the community better. I learn their stories, discern their gifts, and help plug them into the community. My role is the pastoral associate for community trailblazing.
When you read my blog, I hope you realize that I am only a piece of a larger community that greatly desires to be heard. So I urge you to also read Scribblings in the Sand, and be shaped by the prayers of this community!
By the way, this picture game up in google when I image searched "community trailblazing." This lady is pretty awesome:
IT IS NO LONGER: "www.psalmsofthestreet..."
I know this may be confusing, so PLEASE spread the word. I will explain the reasoning in this post.
What does Psalms of the Street mean anyway?
I had a GREAT visit to Richmond this weekend, visiting my friends at Union Presbyterian Seminary (formerly Union-PSCE). I was very excited to share of my experience thus far, perhaps because I knew my peers could relate to and find some hope in my experience of such a vibrant urban church community.
As I explained my internship over and over again, I began to notice threads in the way I described it. The most common thread was my description of a church full of people from ALL walks of life. The more I described the demographic makeup of the Broad Street Ministry community the more I realized the significance of having rich, poor, young, and old in one building worshipping and fellowshipping together. As has been often mentioned, this demographic makeup is truly a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
I have been writing about Broad Street Ministry in my blog for over a month now, and only today did I realize I had been doing a great disservice by calling my blog "psalms of the street." See, I originally took the name from the bulletin on my first day of worshipping at Broad Street. I realized later that "psalms of the street" is the prayer card ministry that seeks to represent the voice of the community. These cards, written by people from every walk of life, are collected, prayed over, and put into a blog in order to express the voices of those who are voiceless. This blog is called Scribblings in the Sand. I invite you to view this blog, with the understanding that these prayers come DIRECTLY from the community at worship, represent people from every walk of life, and are meant to be treated with great discretion (personal information has been removed) and utmost respect. Christ came to give a voice to the voiceless, love to the unloved. Broad Street Ministry hopes to carry this desire out as the body of Christ, and prayer cards serve as an opportunity for those without a voice to be represented.
My role at Broad Street Ministry is NOT to represent the community myself. The community must be able to speak for themselves, since most of them NEVER have this opportunity. Therefore, my blog name is changing to:
communitytrailblazer.blogspot.com
My role at Broad Street Ministry is to be the pastoral welcoming presence to those who wish to become a part of the community. I meet with people who contact us wishing to volunteer or at least get to know the community better. I learn their stories, discern their gifts, and help plug them into the community. My role is the pastoral associate for community trailblazing.
When you read my blog, I hope you realize that I am only a piece of a larger community that greatly desires to be heard. So I urge you to also read Scribblings in the Sand, and be shaped by the prayers of this community!
By the way, this picture game up in google when I image searched "community trailblazing." This lady is pretty awesome:
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