Fermata Nov 5, 2021: A Place of Refuge and Burden

Fermata is the weekly newsletter describing some of the past week’s highlights from Notes of Rest, which is my spiritual retreat ministry that interweaves text, music, and questions for the sake of cultivating stillness, introspection, and creativity in communities so that all may rest. I'd love to host a Notes of Rest for your church, seminary, or affinity group. Feel free to reply to this email to start the conversation!

Recap: Gen 47:1-6
 
This week’s Fermata comes from Notes of Rest for Those of the City, held twice over the last few weeks at City Seminary of New York (where I have been an artist-in-residence this year).  We sat with Jacob and his sons as they moved from Canaan to Egypt as refugees fleeing a famine. They came with the hopes that their son/brother in power, Joseph, would provide a place for them to live and eat. Joseph brokered the deal with Pharaoh for them to live in the land of Goshen, the best part of the land. Ironically, it would become the supply city Rameses under the tyrannical Pharaoh of Exodus. So the place of promise for Jacob and his sons would become the place of burden for his enslaved Hebrew descendants. Given these seminarians were being trained to care for the city, and some of them immigrants themselves, this was a poignant resonance with Scripture about the complexities of life in the city.

Who experiences your city or town as a Goshen, and who as a Rameses? Has God called you to be like Joseph for vulnerable newcomers to your city or town?

May The Lord who too was a refugee give you peace for your journey of fleeing and/or arriving as the world continues to urbanize. As an aid, here's a reminder about who is over our cities: God of this City.

abundantly,
Julian

P.S. Check out these two talks I gave at Yale on Notes of Rest back in September: podcast and lecture.