Leaves of the City

Says the I-Am-Lord…
There are reasons
for a Lamenting word
for American “Christians”.

Roll stones away,
with hearts of clay:
let justice kiss
peace in the mist.

It’s time to search
and make the switch:
Choose you this day! –
serve His new way…”

For blessed are they,
who live the best way,
crying with those who mourn
‘til hope brings a new morn’.

– Chronicles, Isaiah 1-11, 42, 49, 51-52, 61, Amos 5, 9, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Psalms, Matthew, Acts, Philippians, Revelation…

This mini-series responding to America’s crisis today continues from the last post of this blog.
Please note that references in parentheses (-) refer to books of the Bible unless otherwise specified.

Prefatory Note

Some matters are too quickly forgotten,
some crises so easily neglected –
let it not be so of our generation
to continue the traditions of ignorance and apathy.

“Let justice roll on like a river,
true love like a never-failing stream!

For the days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when a harvest will reap without end;

new wine will drip from the mountains
and flow from all the hills.

They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them;
they will plant vineyards and drink their wine;

they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,
and the tree of life
in the middle of the great street of the city,
bearing its fruit in all seasons…

and the leaves of the tree
are for the healing of the cultures. .

– Amos 5, 9; Ruth, Revel 22 (see NRSV, NIV)

“There is a river whose streams
make glad the city of God”:
It runs through the heart of Minneapolis,
where a theater shows our comedy and tragedy,
where teams play out both on their fields,
where stands a university of such big ideas,
– with college halls where humble souls
can teach Jesus’ justice of compassion:
the one in whom we shall yet overcome…
(Lk 4)

The river flows with the blood of George Floyd,
the lament of Abel crying for a better hope,
ever running on without growing weary,
through the heart of our broken land,
to our “saintly” gateway of East-meets-West,
where black musicians mingle blues with jazz,
running down and wide to a deeper gulf
that leads to a sea that feeds an ocean
on whose shores all the children play…
(Hebrews)

Some here dare claim a same-ol’ religious rite:
whatever they say and do, however mean,
their ends justify all means in one mad campaign
by its slick slogan from cold cone-head minds:
“White makes right” –
their self-made calling
to preserve their way, their tradition, their culture,
as thoroughly human as purely demonic –
or so they show on a Saturday night
of hanging “Niggers” and burning their churches
under a love-splitting cross
of Sunday’s table where they eat and drink
judgment upon themselves…
(1 Cor)

Yet the river makes glad the city of God,
the people of the living I-AM-here-to-deliver,
where this God-who-is-love dwells “Immanuel,”
among us still to bring us help at break of day,
on the wings of a dawn whose light is new mercy,
when we will no more shiver in fear –
though the floods of chaos roar and foam,
though this land itself may shake and quake
though our fragile nation lies in uproar,
another human kingdom twittering in the wind –
when God lifts divine voice to melt this land,
“Be still and know:
I-AM – still here to deliver
(those who pray in humble repentance)”…
(Psm 46, Chronicles)

So the river flows from the throne of God,
and of the lamb whose mingled blood
blends all colors into one new melting-pot,
sacrificed to ransom people from all races,
in this world where justice and peace will yet kiss,
on the street that runs the center of this city,
as it is in the heaven of this river,
on whose banks grows the fruit of the tree of life
that heals the cultures…
(Revel 22)

Here, my friends, tears of repentance mingle
in the sweet waters of baptism:
passing through dying into a way of new promise,
to become the blessing of God
for the cultures of this world
who yet pray for the sweet Amen of peace –
the streams for which the deer longs,
my downcast heart aching for a better world,
where such “deep calls to deep”…
(Gen 12; Psms 42)

Here a prophet cries the voice in the wilderness
 that paves a highway for the coming of God:
“Repent – you sinning brood of religious vipers!”
And so comes the true one promised
for those who are sick and tired, and even dead,
to his plunge into our baptism with his blood,
where the cry,  “why have you forsaken me?”
answers across Abel’s abyss,
“This one is my child whom I love” –
so all colors who believe know a new right:
to become children of God …
(Matt 3, 11; John 1, 3)

Here is the river in whose waters we must go down,
to repent our original cultural sins:
our genocidal warring against first peoples here;
our enslaving-killer-racism against new peoples;
our never-broken cold-heart that still starves the poor;
our hate for any not our perfect idol of ourselves.
Here, this false religious culture of this land,
who have forgotten our first-love-call –
to follow the true Jesus’ who died for grace,
to honor this Messiah whose authority is love,
to be the ones who lose all to this call –
Here alone we go down to his baptism, to die:
so somehow in him to yet rise again!
(Amos 5, 9; Philip 3)

For next steps into the courage of facing this crisis, I urge us to view the movie Selma.
This post concludes this mini-series responding to America’s crisis today.
Readers are also encouraged to explore more reflections in this series: Culture Contact.

God so loved the world… God is love!
Then I saw a new heaven and new earth…
and the tree of life…
at the middle of the great street of the city…
and the leaves of the tree
are for the healing of the cultures.

John 3; 1 John 4; Revelation 21, 22

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