July 6, 2003 -FourthSunday after Pentecost
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
NRSVKJV
Mark 6:1-13
“City on a Hill…is Ours”
INTRODUCTION
The City of Angels is Los Angeles; the city of the Golden Gate is San Francisco; the city of wide shoulders is Chicago; the city of brotherly love is Philadelphia. The city of light is Paris; the city of the seven hills is Rome… but the city of God is ours.
Well, you might say, I’m glad to know I have a share, but I don’t live there, and isn’t Jerusalem just a Hamas-ridden mess anyway? My response would be this. Yes, Jerusalem has its problems, but that’s not the city of God. Rather, it’s a shadow of the true city. Further, you do live there, because now, on this side of the cross, the earthly expression of that city is none other than the church itself. For so says the author to the Hebrews:
You have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. . . to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven (Heb. 12:22-23).
Further, I would answer, were you to come to an appreciation of what your citizenship in this city means, your life would be transformed.
In order to explore this further, I would like for us this morning to focus on one of our lectionary readings, Psalm 48. This is one of those Psalms which seems to have some wonderful things to say, but which seems too laden with Jewishness and complexity to be either understood or practically helpful.
Let me however suggest the following outline as a way to make some sense of what is here:
The confidence of God’s city (vv. 12-14)
Would anyone like to hear more?
The glory of God’s city (vv. 1-3)
The old city of Jerusalem was set on two different hills, one to the west, where most of the city of Jerusalem was located, and one to the east, where the temples were built. The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus identified Mt. Zion with the western hill, and this understanding prevailed up until the late 1800’s, when Mt. Zion was re-designated as the eastern hill, which is now the Temple Mount. (Note to Dr. Peay: one dead guy duly quoted).
More important, though, than to which of the two hills the term refers, is that “Mount Zion” is a poetic term used to refer to Jerusalem as a whole. So why not just say ‘Jerusalem’ and be done with it? Answer: because of the emotional connotations of the construction ‘Mount Zion’. ‘Zion’ was probably the ancient Canaanite name for one of the hills on which the city was built – probably the eastern and lower one since that was more habitable. The use of this term would then be a constant reminder that God had given them this place as an inheritance in the face of some fierce opposition. To then refer to the entire city as Mount Zion would incorporate into this memory the soaring peak of Mt. Moriah to the northeast, which actually ascended upwards to the north beyond the walls of the city. Mt. Moriah is place on which Abraham was commanded to go to sacrifice his son Isaac. So, to say Mount Zion as opposed to merely Jerusalem was to connect with the emotional connotations of victory over the Canaanites, the promise made to Abraham long before that, as well as the fulfillment of that promise when David established his city on this very spot.
Mount Zion, as a symbol of the city of God as a whole, is meant to be a metaphor for the greatness of God ever-present over the course of history as well as in our own lives. We are to visualize the city wall up on the hill, then the holy city within, and then Mount Zion rising up beyond the city itself, as a picture of God’s uncontainable glory yet present with us.
Please allow me to suggest an alternate translation of vv. 2-4 which makes clear the way Mount Zion is functioning as a metaphor for the greatness of God in our lives:
The glory of God’s city is ours.
As Christians, we are meant to share in the glory of all of this, for this history is also our history. In fact, we have something even more fantastic to add to the picture. For just to the east of the rise of Mount Moriah, or Mount Zion, is another mount, the Mount of Olives. This is where Jesus Christ, the son of God, was crucified for our sins, securing our victory over the greatest enemy of all – our own sinfulness.
All very exciting, but Reverend, you seem to have forgotten something. The temple is no longer standing. In its place is now the Dome on the Rock of Islam. So much for the glory of God? Maybe this is all some kind of religious game after all, without any real hope for anyone.
Hold on. Realize that while Jesus has come, the story isn’t yet finished. In actual fact, the loss of the Jewish Temple and the presence of the Dome on the Rock, point to our continued need for redemption. Listen to how the Jewish Book of Prayer puts it:
Because of our sins we were exiled from our country and banished from our land. We cannot go up as pilgrims to worship Thee, to perform our duties in Thy chosen house, the great and Holy Temple which was called by Thy name, on account of the hand that was let loose on Thy sanctuary. May it be Thy will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, merciful King, in Thy abundant love again to have mercy on us and on Thy sanctuary; rebuild it speedily and magnify its glory.
The resolution to the problem is not to question the glory of God as he has and will manifest it in our lives, but rather to realize that the story has not yet reached its closing chapter. But it will. I like how the author of the Book of Hebrews puts it to those early Jewish Christians, who were struggling with a similar question. While I will not take time to unpack the implications, here is how the question was answered then:
The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. (And now here comes the clincher…) For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
In other words, the holy city still stands, because the earthly Jerusalem was merely a shadow of the reality that is in heaven.
The glory of God’s city is ours.
Why spend all this time and energy to try to get a handle on the glory of God? Because this glory is the glory that resides in us, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our souls. We are not biologically-driven cosmic accidents. We are children of a great King who has never been defeated, and who has resided, is residing, and will reside in his citadel for eternity. Our anxieties, however frequent, need not plague us. Our fears, however deep-seated, need not cripple us, for God is in his holy city, and this is the very same city in which we live.
The glory of God’s city is ours.
What the glory of the city of God means for us can be summarized in one simple word: R-E-J-O-I-C-E. Rejoice.
The glory of the city of God is ours.
The second thing that our collaborative authors, the Sons of Korah, want us to see about our city of God is it's thrill. By this I mean the thrill of victory we Christians have over our enemies.
The thrill of God’s city (vv. 4-11)
The Psalm speaks about the kings of the earth gathering their forces together to come against God’s holy city. If all the world’s armies were to band together to contest God’s purpose, what would the outcome be? Negative… Very negative… Why? Well, they would come up the plain, and the city of God would come into view, and so glorious would it be, that they would be stunned and run away. They would tremble in terror, the text says, like a woman trembles when she is giving birth. This is a polite way of saying they would wet their pants!
Picture all the great European powers of the 17th century assembling their ships of the line: Britain, Spain, Portugal, France. They would have reason for confidence. Not one navy, but all of them, together. Odds of victory fairly good, yes? No… for over the horizon steams a 21st century American carrier battle group, with F-18 Hornets leading the wayWhat would a 17th century sailor likely do in response?
When your otherwise formidable enemies are trembling like women in labor at the mere sight of your glory, how are you going to feel? Thrilled! The thrill for us as believers is enhanced by knowing that while our enemies tremble at our Father’s very presence, we are secure and unfailingly loved by this very same God.
My youngest of three sons, Noah, now 15 months-old, knows the thrill of his father’s love. There are times when I’ll lean down to give him a hug and a kiss, and he will respond in shaking, smiling and exhaling in uncontainable thrill. [Demonstrate]. This is same thrill we will experience when we come into personal contact with the power, security, and love of our Heavenly Father.
Verse 8 proclaims, “As we haveheard, so we have seen.” It’s one thing to hear about God’s greatness displayed in the past: it’s quite another to experience it for ourselves. This raises a question for us: how are we as a congregation really meant to experience the thrill of God’s presence?
We don’t have enemies banding together down in Hart Park plotting to mount a frontal assault on our pillars, so the chances of experiencing the thrill militarily seem small at this point. Yet what if the thrill were to come in terms of a growing sense of mission to our community. Jesus said to his first disciples: “You are the light of the world: a city on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matt. 5:14). This very church is set on a hill, on Church Street. We offer faith, freedom, and fellowship in the midst of a culture that is so confused as to struggle to understand the very meaning of these terms. Our steeple soars into the sky so as to be seen for miles around. Maybe as we come to understand better the ways that we are meant to be a city on a hill Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, and through our mission work, even the world, we will experience more of the thrill of our Heavenly Father’s presence.
The thrill of the city of God is ours.
Thus far, we have discussed theglory of the city of God (vv. 1-3), and just now the thrill of the city of God (vv. 4-11). There is now a third and final aspect of the city of God for us to consider: the confidence of God’s city (vv. 12-14).
The confidence of God’s city (vv. 12-14)
The Psalm now invites us walk about Zion. We are to step back, and take in the whole metaphor once again.
Would you walk about Zion with me for a moment? Ah yes, there are the towers, and there are the ramparts, and here we are, walking through the citadels. Well, thank you for the walk.
What did you experience while we were walking? What I experienced, when I the enduring towers and ramparts, and when I saw our Heavenly Father present within them, was confidence.
The confidence of the city of God is ours.
Confidence often comes from experiencing the enduring comfort of a familiar place. This is what families are to be for children. This is what churches are to be for believers on pilgrimage.
I remember coming to this very sanctuary as a 12-year old for Easter. I had this fancy little Easter suit of which I was very proud. Yet more significantly, I remember that Sunday understanding to a much greater extent than I ever had before that God was real, and that he was with me. I can’t express in words what it means to now be back here as an adult, and to see that God is still real, and still with me, and still in this place.
Are we spending enough time with our Heavenly Father so as to be nurtured by the confidence His presence provides? If you would like more of God’s confidence in your life, what avenue might you like to pursue to obtain it? Maybe you would like to spend more time in personal prayer or devotion. Maybe you would like to make a more regular commitment to worship. Maybe you simply need to slow down and simplify your lifestyle, so that God has more time and space in which to speak.
As you ask God, he Himself may guide you into what you need. This is how much he loves us, and how well he knows us. However, if as your pastors, we can be of assistance, please know that we would love to talk with you personally about an appropriate next step for your personal journey of faith.
Another way to be nurtured by God’s confidence would be to take a few minutes some day just to wander around this place in reflective prayer. Where has God blessed you here, and how? What are the fondest memories that come to mind? What might your Heavenly Father be saying to you through these experiences with regard to your next steps of faith.
The confidence of God’s city is ours.
In conclusion, what Psalm 48 is written to tell us is that the city of God is ours. It is ours in the glory it possesses; it is ours in the thrill it provides through the power, security and love of our Heavenly Father; and it is ours in the confidence it inspires for the future.
Given that the city of God is ours, what response from us is required? Might it not be nothing less than to reorganize our lives given the reality of the city of God in which we live? As we come to understand where we live, and for whom we live, we will inevitably begin to think differently, to feel differently, and to choose differently.
Hymn #424, “Hail the Glorious Golden City,” captures in poetry the challenge and blessing that the city of God brings to us:
Hail the glorious golden city, pictured by the seers of old!
Everlasting light shines o’er it, wondrous tales of it are told.
Only righteous men and women dwell within its gleaming wall;
Wrong is banished from its borders, justice reigns supreme o’er all.
We are builders of that city; All our joys and all our groans
Help to rear its shining ramparts; All our lives are building stones.
Whether humble or exalted, all are called to task divine;
All must aid alike to carry Forward one sublime design.
And the work that we have builded, Oft with bleeding hands and tears,
Oft in error, oft in anguish, Will not perish with our years.
It will live and shine transfigured In the final reign of right;
It will pass into the splendors Of the city of the light.
The city of God is ours.
Amen.
in the Old Testament,the easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem. It was the site of the Jebusite city captured by David, king of Israel and Judah, in the 10th century BC (2 Samuel 5:6–9) and established by him as his royal capital. Some scholars believe that the name also belonged to the “stronghold of Zion” taken by David (2 Samuel 5:7), which may have been the fortress of the city. The Jewish historianJosephus , in the 1st century AD, identified Zion with the western hill of Jerusalem, where most of the city lay in his day. This incorrect identification of the site was retained until the late 19th or early 20th century, when the site of Zion was identified as the eastern hill (modern Ophel). The site was not included in the walls of Jerusalem's 16th-century fortifications.
The etymology and meaning of the name are obscure. It appears to be a pre-Israelite Canaanite name of the hill upon which Jerusalem was built; the name “mountain of Zion” is common. In biblical usage, however, “Mount Zion” often means the city rather than the hill itself. Zion appears in the Old Testament 152 times as a title of Jerusalem; over half of these occurrences appear in two books, the Book of Isaiah (46 times) and that of Psalms (38 times). It appears seven times in the New Testament and five times in quotations from the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament, Zion is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation and is infrequently used in ordinary prose. It usually has emotional and religious overtones, but it is not clear why the name Zion rather than the name Jerusalem should carry these overtones. The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the royal city and the city of the Temple. Mount Zion is the place where Yahweh, the God of Israel, dwells (Isaiah 8:18; Psalm 74:2), the place where he is king (Isaiah 24:23) and where he has installed his king, David (Psalm 2:6). It is thus the seat of the action of Yahweh in history.
In the Old Testament the city of Jerusalem is personified as a woman and addressed or spoken of as “the daughter of Zion,” always in a context charged with feeling aroused by either of two ideas that stand in opposition to each other: the destruction of Jerusalem or its deliverance. After Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, the Israelites could not forget Zion (Psalm 137), and, in the prophecy after the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, Zion is the scene of Yahweh's messianic salvation. It is to Zion that the exiles will be restored (Jeremiah 3:14), and there they will find Yahweh (Jeremiah 31). Bearing all these connotations, Zion came to mean the Jewish homeland, symbolic of Judaism or Jewish national aspirations (whence the nameZionism for the 19th–20th-century movement to establish a Jewish national centre or state in Palestine).
Although the name of Zion is rare in the New Testament, it has been frequently used in Christian literature and hymns as a designation for the heavenly city or for the earthly city of Christian faith and fraternity.
Map of Jerusalem
The greatest early cartographic-artistic representational map ofJerusalem is that of Christian von Andrichom (1533-1585). George Braun and Franciscus Hogenberg adapted it for inclusion in their monumental Civitates Orbis Terrarum published in six volumes between 1572 and 1617. It has rightly been called the most impressive and elaborate collection of city views ever produced. Jerusalem is accorded two consecutive sheets, which show the city as it was conceived to be in the time of Jesus. A wall encloses a well laid out metropolis with imposing buildings, wide avenues, and spacious plazas and verdant surroundings; in short, a model medieval European city whose anachronistic character gave to the viewer a sense of immediacy and comfortable familiarity. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century viewer could "walk its streets" and vicariously experience those momentous events which took place there and so radically altered human history.
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/loc/Holy1.html
This charming pastel watercolor wall plaque depicting the holy cities of the Holy Land-Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and Safed-was painted in Palestine in the second half of the nineteenth century. The depiction is neither geographic nor topographic but religio-historical, presenting this holy venue not as it existed on earth but as envisioned by a pious resident or pilgrim who was a gifted primitive artist, ("Holy Cities" Wall Plaque, Pastel Watercolor, Jerusalem (?), c. 1870. Hebraic Section,Library of Congress Photo).
Jerusalem was and remains the holiest of cities in the Holy Land, but Jews also gave a measure of holiness to three other cities there:Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias. The holiness ofJerusalem arises in part from what remains there, but more from what took place there. So it is with its sister cities. Hebron is where the patriarchs and matriarchs lived and are buried, and it was the first capital of King David. Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, was chosen by the patriarch of the Jews in the second century as his seat. The PalestinianTalmud was largely composed in its great rabbinical academy. in the environs of Safed, high in the Galilean hills, are the graves of the leading rabbis of late antiquity. Its stature as a holy city was enhanced in the sixteenth century, when it was the greatest center of Jewish mysticism and seat of Jewish legal scholarship. To gain entree into the company of the three more ancient holy cities, it called itself Beth-El, suggesting identity with the biblical site which Jacob called "The Gate of Heaven."
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/loc/Holy1.html
(The Jewish Prayer Book)
Because of our sins we were exiled from our country and banished from our land. We cannot go up as pilgrims to worship Thee, to perform our duties in Thy chosen house, the great and Holy Temple which was called by Thy name, on account of the hand that was let loose on Thy sanctuary. May it be Thy will, Lord our God and God of our fathers, merciful King, in Thy abundant love again to have mercy on us and on Thy sanctuary; rebuild it speedily and magnify its glory.
The Temple Mount: Site of the Ancient Jewish Temples
The Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem measures today approximately 45 acres in extent. It is surrounded by a trapezoidal wall: The south wall measures about 910 feet, the North about 1025, the east wall about 1520 and the west wall about 1580 feet in length. The average height above sea level on the platform is about 2400 feet above sea level. Most of the buildings and surface features are Islamic - no visible traces of the First or Second Temples can be found on the platform today. The area is park-like in its settings with plants of trees and shrubs and many ancient buildings and monuments added over the past 1300 years of Moslem stewardship of the site.
The present-day platform area of the Temple Mount lies topographically just below the peak of a Jerusalem ridge system known as Mount Moriah. This is the site David purchased from a Jebusite named Ornan late in his reign. King David prepared the area in order build a permanent House of God to replace the Tabernacle of Moses which accompanied the Jews after their Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. David had the plans drawn up for a building whose dimensions were twice those of the Tabernacle, and he amassed great quantities of building materials: stone, cedar, and much gold and silver. However, it was his son Solomon who actually built the First Jewish temple (1 Chronicles 22:14-15, 28:11-20).
The ridge system where the Temple Mount is now located is believed by many reputable sources to bethe site where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22:1-2). While Solomon built the First Temple about 3000 years ago, Abraham's visit to Mt. Moriah was about a thousand years earlier.
Topographic Map of Jerusalem
(Contour interval 10 meters)
North is at the top of the map. The Mount of Olives is on the far right, Mount Zion on the left. Mount Moriah rises as a long ridge at the south end of the City of David and continues on past the present Temple Mount, and reaches its highest point outside the Northern walls of the Old City, at the top of the map.
http://www.templemount.org/theories.html
The bedrock rises when going northward from the base of the City of David to highest ground north of the Temple Mount area. (This is obscured on site since the Temple Mount Platform itself is a large flat area surrounded by retaining wall.) The southern end of the Platform is actually built up on tall underground pillars and arches.
To the east of the Temple Mount lies the Kidron Valley, and the Mount of Olives. To the south, the City of David and the Hinnom Valley. To the west, the famed Western Wall (called in earlier times the "Wailing Wall"). To the north of the Temple site was the Roman military Antonia Fortress, and then, further, the high ground outside the city walls, which many believe was the site of Golgotha. The bedrock of Mt. Moriah continues to rise to the north - outcroppings in the Northern wall reveal road cuts that have been made in the bedrock at the North end of the Old City outside the Damascus Gate and along the main road to the east. The crest of Mt. Moriah is just above the present Garden Tomb.
Augustine and the City of God
Mike Bone, Boston University (Fall, 1996)
Augustine began writing City of God as a defense against those who blamed the Christians for the fall of Rome. After Alaric and his Goths sacked the city in 410 AD, some claimed the traditional gods of Rome were angry with the people for abandoning their worship in favor of the Christian religion. In the first half of the work, Augustine argued the implausibility of this thesis based, for example, on the calamities that befell the city long before the birth of Christ. Augustine devoted the remainder of the work to expounding a Christian interpretation not only of contemporary events, but of the entire sweep of human history.
Augustine’s defense was nothing less than a philosophy of history that interpreted events in the lives of nations and people as the redemptive acts of God in history, culminating in the appearance of Christ and the establishment of the church. Augustine formulated this philosophy in terms of an ancient and on-going struggle between two societies: the heavenly city, or city of God, as symbolized by Jerusalem, and the earthly city whose symbol is Babylon. The city of God consists of the elect among humanity and of the holy angels, while the "city of men," i.e., the earthly city, is made up of all those angels and humans who are in rebellion against God. The two are characterized by their respective loves, whether it be love of God or love of self apart from God.
Given such a philosophy of history, one might think that Augustine would have equated the city of God with the institutional church, but such is not the case at all. This is primarily because Augustine viewed the two societies as intermingled to some extent in this life. The image he commonly used to express this mingling of the two cities is from the parable where Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a field of wheat in which an enemy has sown weeds, or tares. While the true church consists of the elect throughout all ages, the church as a visible institution has within it both those whose first love is God and those whose first love is self, i.e., both wheat and tares. Further, there are some outside the church, as Augustine once was, who love God but have not yet embraced Christianity. The two societies will be separated only at the final judgment.
Augustine’s philosophy of history does acknowledge history’s culmination in a bodily resurrection and a final judgment, but his eschatological vision differs markedly from that found in most of the New Testament. Augustine rejected chiliastic, or millenarian, interpretations of the thousand year reign mentioned in the Revelation of John, chapter 20. Instead, he considered the time when the devil is bound and cast into the abyss to be the beginning of this present age of the church when Christ bound the "strong man" (Mark 3). The "first resurrection" of Rev. 20:5 is, then, that of the soul, i.e., regeneration according to faith that takes place in the present life by means of baptism. Further, those who come alive in it and reign with Christ are the elect in the church. Finally, the "thousand years" signified for Augustine the completion of the years allotted to this world, regardless of how long that might be.
Combining these two images, Augustine articulated a view of the institutional church as a kingdom at war. On the one hand, the church even now is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. This age is the millennial reign. On the other hand, it is a church composed of wheat and tares. Therefore, the church is a "kingdom militant," that is, a kingdom at war with the enemies of Christ and with the lusts that rage within its members.
Because of his great reverence for scripture and tradition, Augustine would doubtless have accepted and affirmed every image for the church found in the New Testament. Nevertheless, Augustine’s understanding of the church as composed of wheat and tares to be separated only at the final judgment mitigated the biblical expectation of holy living from each member of the body of Christ. The haustafeln of the Pauline letters, the Petrine application of God’s covenant promises with Israel to the Christian community, James’ assertion that "faith without works is dead": all these attest to the biblical expectation that holiness should reside in both the head and the members of the body of Christ. Augustine’s focus on the church as wheat and tares, however, was a positive move for Christian theology. It allowed him to recognize that God is already at work in a world which, after all, belongs to God by virtue of creation. It confronted the reality that ethical expectation can create a legalism that undermines the church’s defining characteristic of charity, cf. his experience with the Donatists. Then, too, it explained the sociological reality that some who are baptized as infants become truly despicable characters.
Augustine also significantly altered a certain New Testament understanding of the church by interpreting the lurid images of Christian apocalyptic in terms of an on-going present. Such an interpretation flies in the face of the "imminent return" mentality of several of Paul’s letters and, of course, the radical cosmological dualism of apocalyptic literature in general. The positive impact of this creative re-reading of scripture was to make those Pauline letters and the Apocalypse of John more plausible to a fifth century reader. It extended the apologetic strategy already present in II Peter of pointing to a different time sense in the divine: "For a thousand years is as a day to the Lord." Further, it lessened the temptation to engage in pointless speculation as to "the day and hour" (Acts 1).
In spite of the positive impact of both these developments in ecclesiology, I think that in two ways they enervate the very view of church that Augustine espoused, i.e., as a kingdom at war within and without. First, insofar as this approach to eschatology removes the element of cosmological dualism from the church’s self-understanding, it is easier for the church to become just another vested interest. The church is no longer "light in a crooked and perverse generation" (Phil 2). The second is related to this. By positing holiness in the head, i.e., in Christ, alone, the church either relinquishes its mandate to be a change agent in society, or delegates that mandate to a spiritual elite. The church is no longer salt and light, and is certainly not "a city set on a hill" that cannot be hid.
Matt. 5:14 You are the light of the world: a city set on a hill cannot