Between the Alpha and the Omega dwells the whole universe. I’m improvising on two phrases, one of which I learned in Hebrew school: The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Aleph; and the word for Father begins with Aleph: Av (abba); the last letter is Ayin, and the word for Mother begins with Ayin: Ima. In Hebrew school we chanted: “Abba, Ima, Abba, Ima.” And the rabbi said, “Between Abba and Ima lies the whole universe,” that is to say, protected, cherished and loved.

The other phrase is John’s opening phrase to his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word…” a kind of update to Genesis I, where God speaks the universe into being. Starting out with my statement that the universe dwells between the Alpha and the Omega, I’m alluding to the Christ of John. But more than focusing upon the figure of Christ, I’m trying to disclose the meaning of that Christ as the intimate relationship of spirit and matter, the indissoluble covenantal interdependence between the candle and the flame, between the world — the whole shebang — and God.

A city is the whole shebang living within the Word of God. Preaching to and out of an urban scene locates the lives and stories generated in that scenario dwelling within the Word. There is nothing that cannot be said or proclaimed that lies outside that Word. And nothing foretold that has not been anticipated through that Word.

The theological canvas I’m offering may act as permission to the preacher to grasp the city in all its tragedy and grandeur, its complexity and ambiguity and paint a portrait of its relationship within the Word of God which pervades and transcends that city, in which the ordinary becomes miraculous and the miraculous, boring. A city tolerates miracles and the mundane, putting the two on an even playing field. Your priest is a bar tender and your shrink a cabby. In a sauna, two billionaires can make a financial arrangement affecting millions while two housewives sitting together on the subway can discuss the relative merits of cell phones, peeled tomatoes, and why charter schools have to be checked out thoroughly. In other words, to preach the city is to preach a clue about the way the universe works — in chaotic order.

Today, it may be actually easier to disclose the awesome character of a city and the awesome character of creation mutually divulging the Word of God within their midst than during the days when only one model of the universe was supposed to have explained all cases. The Newtonian Model of the Enlightenment lasting well into the late 19th century presupposed a mechanical symmetry that has yet to be demonstrated anywhere. Nevertheless, that mechanical model works in local systems up to a point. But so does a relativistic model which explains some situations such as space/time and gravity adequately. Quantum Mechanics deals with the very, very small, demonstrating, among other mysteries, that a particle can be in two places at the same time. Chaos theory points to clouds and droplets from faucets, positing repetition and novelty through infinitely repeatable forms and novel arrangements. And string theory stipulates that the universe is actually made up of vibrating strings of energy. Such models are taken to be somewhat appropriate and, even if they clash with one another, still work to some degree. No model of a city ever exhausts what goes on in a city, but suggests what might actually be going on in a sauna or subway.

Preaching from the vantage point of a city as a clue to the way the universe works can hint at the meaning of God’s Word in and beyond the hubbub of a city, of a world, of a universe. At this juncture, ethics and aesthetics nearly collapse into one expression of truth and goodness.

Granting that the hermeneutic here subscribes to induction and a good deal of poetic license, the preacher is free to use the city in many ways as illustrative of biblical wisdom etched in the human condition, its technologies of war and peace, commerce and enjoyment, kindness and cruelty, gestures of despair and expressions of hope. The elbow room of a city reflects the elbow room of the universe, protected, cherished and loved by the Alpha and Omega, the Abba and the Ima, the Word of God in which creation dwells. And the Bible foresaw clearly that the point at which salvation is realized is the city, renewed and reborn, a transformation of heaven and earth.

Have fun!

About the author

Jill Schaeffer wrote 4 articles for this publication.

Rev. Dr. Jill Schaeffer is a minister member of the Presbytery of New York City and Visiting Associate Professor of Ethics at New York Theological Seminary. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley. Dr. Schaeffer served for 13 years overseas with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed Church of France primarily in human rights and as a bi-lingual translator for the Evangelical Community for Apostolic Actions (CEVAA).

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