Jeremiah Project

*In preparation for our coming together, and heading to New Orleans, each participant was asked to reflect on a passage from Jeremiah. As we prepare our hearts and minds for the trip, we will be featuring an excerpt from these reflection each day until we depart. These excerpts are posted with the author’s permission.

An Excerpt from the Reflection on Revelation 3:14-22 by A. Stephens-Rennie:

Behold, the voice said. Behold.

Behold. I’m at the door and knocking

All the while you’re inside blocking out the sights and sounds of all that surrounds, ignoring that call to get in on the ground floor, to get off your ass and open the front door.

Step on up, the knocker dares. Step on up, invite me in. Step on up, and see if it’ll change you.

Step on up, people. People get ready, there’s a train a comin.’ You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.

All the while the doubters lie there and stare. What’s the use in getting ready when we got 57 channels and nothing on.

But it’s on alright, you mighta seen it the other night. I saw it in the papers, and I read the news, all those blog reader updates breaking through my tweeting depression and facebook blues.

It’s on alright, I can tell you it’s on.

The game, it’s on, it’s going on around us. And those Saints, they’re here to surround us, a cloud of witnesses to bear, to testify, to rectify the injustices of the past, to rise at long last from those troubled waters and a nation that’s forgotten kids shooting kids in trashcan schools, neighbourhoods leveled and oily gulf coast pools.

Lest we forget the fallen of this battle, too, let’s pause and be honest here tonight.

This work implicates me, and it implicates you.

Behold, the voice says. Behold.

Behold, I’m at the door and I’m knocking.

The work in Louisiana and the work in Ottawa isn’t near done. Kingdom work is never done.

But it’s on, alright, I can tell you it’s on.

Maybe you’ve seen it, heard it, felt it. Maybe you’re starting to see that Aslan’s on the move. We’re here, aren’t we? And we’ve heard the knocks on the door.

Bodies bend and broken by a long and dangerous sleep, those nail-pierced hands are knocking, and inviting us to open the door to an open table.

Beneath the radar on this underground railroad, the Saints, they’ve been marching. All this time, the Saints been marching in. Coming home from the four winds, gathering, working. Rebuilding a city, a state, and – in their spare time – a football team.

You can hear the masses chanting as they roll down St. Charles:

“Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gunna beat them Saints?”

This week, there’s no-one. This week, there’s nothing left to do but get on board.

Rebuilding communities and rebuilding lives. Finding welfare in the joys of a brow-beaten city come home. Hope for a city in shambles that knows the work isn’t done.

So Lord, this is it. This is our chance. And we’re taking it right, entering the fight, hopping on a flight to join them Saints. Because, Lord, O Lord, we’re gonna be in that number, when the Saints go Marching in.

*This was used as part of the commissioning service sermon on Friday, February 12, 2010.