Zion’s Gate

 

Zion’s Gate

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

-- Matthew 23:37 NRSV

On a business trip to Israel, I asked a colleague for a ride to Jerusalem. He dropped me by the Jaffa Gate. By the time I arrived it was dark. It had been a few years since I navigated the narrow streets, but I managed to find my way alone past the Cardo and to the Western Wall. A crowd was dispersing after some sort of concert or rally. I felt I had missed something important.

On my way back, I made a wrong turn, the Jaffa Gate was not in sight. I turned right. I came to another gate. I went through and read the sign: “Zion’s Gate.” My mind raced as I considered whether this hill really was “Mount Zion,” a beacon of the present and future kingdom of God in our faith community. I explored the streets nearby and found Hagia Zion, or Holy Zion church and the Jewish Yeshiva Institute for the Preservation of Holy Mount Zion. Beyond a barbed wire fence, I saw the minaret of a local mosque. Despite all aspirations for peace, Jerusalem remained a city divided, yet from this new vantage point on Zion’s holy hill, the city’s outer walls were an apparition in golden light.

Jesus spoke of basileia tou theou, the kingdom of God as both a present reality and a hoped for future condition. My unexpected nighttime discovery of Zion helped me to understand Jesus’ teachings better. As we work together as an imperfect yet perfecting community, let us always see Zion as a brick and mortar reality to be at once celebrated and transformed as well as a future ideal towards which we can strive.

Prayer Thought: Gather us in, O God, in closeness to your peace. Help us to envision hoped for community even as we labor for justice in our time and place.

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