Food for the Journey
ARISE!
A NEW CITY by Andrew Senior
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. 22
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,
