A New City
Andrew Senior
One day there will be a new city, perfect and complete. It will have walls of jasper with foundations decorated with every kind of precious stone, and a great street of gold, as pure as transparent glass. It will be a city without suffering, without injustice.
The most incomprehensible thing is that the city will be God’s dwelling place among his people. Not as an inhabitant of the city, but as the source of its eternal light and life. In the city “no longer will there be any curse” (Revelation 22:3). “There will be no more night” (Revelation 22:5). Its inhabitants will not struggle in adversity against hunger and poverty and the indifference of their fellow human beings. Instead, they will see the face of God himself.
The centre of Sheffield is changing. It is changing all the time. Today I walked from the Peace Gardens, down Norfolk Street, through Fitzalan Square, along Haymarket and Waingate and over Lady’s Bridge. Tower cranes, walls of scaffolding and heavy plant machinery abound.
There are rubble flatlands behind wooden hoardings, piles of gravel and stacks of portacabins. Some buildings have vanished without trace and everywhere new buildings are under construction. Admittedly, the changes keep me interested, but as I walked I wondered why there’s money to refashion the city centre, seemingly on a near constant basis, when so many people in Sheffield live in poverty.
The economics of it are more complex and nuanced than I appreciate – perhaps - but it’s hard to ignore the imbalance and the straightforward injustice.
My destination was the Tesco Extra on Savile Street. A few times a year I volunteer for the Burngreave Foodbank, taking one of the two-hour shifts that run over a weekend, staffing the collection point and handing out foodbank shopping lists to arriving customers.
I stand at the top of the moving walkway, smiling and saying ‘We’re collecting for the local foodbank today, if you’re able to donate any of the items on the list’ over and over again.
Shopper responses vary. Many are positive and they donate at the end of their shop – sometimes a whole bag or even, on occasion, a whole trolley. Some appear indifferent and seem to take the list because it’s easier than not taking the list - but make a donation nevertheless.
Some don’t engage at all. Some don’t understand the intention: ‘I’m all right, thanks,’ is not an uncommon response (‘but that’s the point,’ I want to say). Some say they can’t donate: ‘We survive on a basic pension’ I was pointedly told today.
And then some donate in the singular – one tin of beans or one can of tomatoes or one packet of pasta. There is something especially moving about these donations; shoppers who are unable to give much, but, undeterred, give what they are able to give. Today, it was a tin of tuna fish.
After my two hours were done, I retraced my route back through the city to my office. As I passed new shop fronts, freshly pedestrianised streets and rewilded areas, I wondered again what it would take to reorientate the city’s priorities so that the needs of those obliged to access foodbanks were met. I suspect a lot would need to change; corporately, municipally and socially. But the tin of tuna fish had brought to mind another offered gift.
As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” - Luke 21:1–4
In noticing the widow, Jesus noticed the least of the least, and more than that, he commended her actions. It is a radical declaration. The actual amount the widow gave was not important to Jesus; his concern was with the total sacrifice of her gift in obedience to God. She gave all she had, everything she had to live on.
Jesus commended her because, in obedience to his Father, he too gave all he had. And he had everything. Though he was “in very nature God”, he did not “consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6–8).
As I think about the poverty and the need in Sheffield, I remember that Jesus’ love for me cost him everything, just as the widow’s obedience to God cost her everything. The command of Jesus is that I love others as he has loved me (John 15:12–13).
So, as I wait for God’s new city, what do I need to give up in order to show greater love?
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” - Revelation 21:1–4
Andrew Senior lives in Sheffield and writes short fiction, poetry and reflections on faith: https://andrewseniorwriting.weebly.com/