Introduction
This week’s postscript considers the importance of cities to different groups of people in both the world today and in Jesus’ context, specifically Jerusalem.
Context
The news this week from the crisis in Syria is centred on the need for aid to reach the people who are suffering starvation in some of its war-torn cities. Listen to this news item from the BBC Radio 4 programme World at One (about 25 minutes into the programme.)
War and the struggle to claim cities is a pattern that has echoed throughout history, and it is very much part of the contemporary landscape of our world. In Luke’s Gospel we see a glimpse of Jesus’ reaction to the city that had been the scene of so much war and struggle for his people – Jerusalem. On one level Jesus is brutally realistic about Jerusalem ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!’ (Luke 13.34). But this realism is tempered with a very real sense of his grief for the city. Jerusalem will reject him and ultimately the city herself will suffer.
Reflection
Cities can evoke powerful sentiments. Those who live in a city may experience a range of different emotions provoked by the complexity of residing there – frustration at the traffic, irritation at the way some parts are being developed, but also pleasure. Cities can showcase beautiful architecture soaked in history; they can be centres for exciting cultural events; cities provide work and opportunities for people from all sorts of backgrounds. And you don’t have to live in a city to appreciate their wonderful confusion of beauty, bedlam and bustle. But perhaps, fundamentally, the city speaks of belonging – a place that gathers the diversity of humanity and, for however long they remain within its boundaries, a place that stamps everyone with the distinctive features of that place.
This week there is a renewed effort to get aid into some of the great cities of Syria. As news emerges about the humanitarian crisis afflicting the cities at the centre of the violence, the requirement to gain access to these places intensifies. Some of the cities are besieged; bombs ravage others causing people to flee, although there are also those who choose to stay. This is an interesting and often complex choice, but for some the power of belonging to their city compels them to remain. One resident of Aleppo expressed it like this: ‘We will stay put…even if we survive just on bread we will stay home…we will stay here until the last drop of our blood.’ (Interviewed on World at One, BBC Radio 4, 17the February 2016).
Cities evoke intense emotions.
Luke 13.34 is a powerful lament for the fate of a city that was closely bound up with the identity of many of the Jewish people – Jerusalem. This city is the location of the temple, the home of kings, and the centre of religious devotion. Despite all the pain that has occurred for God’s people in the city, Jerusalem is where they belong. But Jerusalem will be also the place of Jesus’ death. It will not recognise him and Jesus is filled with sadness for the city. His pain for the city can be felt in the words of Luke’s gospel. He longs for the city, desiring to gather her up, but she will not be willing and he feels this passionately.
Jerusalem has evoked powerful sentiments in Jesus.
Prayer
This could be used within a time of reflective prayer:
Invite the congregation to close their eyes and to picture the city in which they live, or a city that they visit frequently, or a city that is important to them. Ask them to view different aspects of the city in their mind’s eye – the buildings, the commercial centre, the places they know the best, the places that are run down. After a few moments ask people to pray for the city. Suggest that they pray for the city as a whole, for the areas they know and for one or two specific people who live in that city. End with this prayer.
Lord, you are sovereign over all the cities in this world.
We pray for the cities we know and love.
We pray for your light to shine.
We also lift to you the cities that are filled with violence and strife
and we ask that you draw near to those who live in and love those cities too.
We pray for your light to shine.
Amen.
Questions
- Why was Jesus so grieved for Jerusalem? What did this city represent?
- How do you feel about the cities that are central to your life?
- What do these cities represent to you?
- How can you best pray for the cities you have in mind?
Action
Make a list of seven cities across the world. You may have a connection to them, or they may be selected entirely at random. Pray for one of them each day this week. You could do a little internet research about each one in order to inform your prayers.
Young people
Find a map of the world that includes the major cities in each country. Equip each young person with a sheet of dot stickers and several parcel stickers. Invite them to put a dot on every city they have visited. Ask the group to write the name of a couple of the cities they are familiar with on the parcel stickers, along with any interesting details of their visit to that place, and invite them to stick these around the edge of the map. Encourage everyone to read the stories placed at the edge of the map. Once the activity is complete take a thick marker pen and write the words of Psalm 27.13 across the map in large letters: ‘I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living’. Finally, reflect together on what this might mean for the cities on the map.
Fiona Dorman trained as a secondary English teacher. She is a freelance writer, is currently doing a MA in theology at Trinity College, Bristol and attends an Anglican church in North Bristol.
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