Zion's Gate

Psalm 87

On the holy mount stands the city he founded;

    the Lord loves the gates of Zion
    more than all the dwelling places of Jacob.
Glorious things of you are spoken,
    O city of God. 

As part of my Sabbatical I have spent some days in Jerusalem.  Previous days in Jerusalem had been hurried pilgrimages but due to a combination of plans and unexpected circumstantial changes this time I was had days to explore.  

Here is Zion's Gate.  Like many things in Jerusalem it is not what you first assume it to be - or perhaps more accurately want it to be.  For this gate is, as might be expected by the name, next to Zion's hill but the hill is outside the Old City wall, not inside it.

Walls are human constructs and cause confusion in many ways.  Today's international political hot potato a couple of miles from here is the wall (you can see it from this wall) built between Israel and the West Bank.

This Old City wall had many stories but until 50 years ago this year it had, since the modern founding of the State of Israel, formed the border between that State and Jordan.  The marks in the wall are not the result of weather but of bullets.  The Israelis were outside on Zion's hill and the Jordanians inside on the Old City wall, a tense stand off that in other places nearby required the UN to intervene to rescue, for example, stray footballs and family pets caught between the two sides.

It is ironic and thought-provoking that having (joyfully) dispensed with this wall as a barrier the Israelis have felt it necessary in this century to build another one between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  It is a metaphor of the human condition - a metaphor written into the First Story when Adam and Eve are walled out of the garden.

God loves the gates.

This is because he IS a gate (John 10).

Falling Apart

A few blog readers will know to whom I refer , but out of internet modesty I will content myself with the relative anonymity of writing that I was recently in a meeting with a Government Minister.  The purpose of the meeting was itself interesting (and not at all confidential).  What caught my attention was a little phrase that the minister used in passing:  referring to the general state of the nations the minister commented, "things seem to be falling apart everywhere at the moment".

 

 

In itself it is plain obvious.  Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria, Somalia, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali and even, in its own way, the (formerly) United Kingdom.

 

I suppose if I'd heard two congregants in Church, two people at a bus stop or two people watching the news on TV saying it I'd have barely noticed.  But a Government Minister?  So even up there at the Top it looks scary?

 

Well, thank God that Top is not the real Top.

 

Among a thousand Bible verses that help - but less well known than most - the disasters of the human story are characterised as God gathering grapes . . .

 

Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe."

 

From the real Top it really does look different.