Something on Tragedy

Early in his career as a theologian, Stanley Hauerwas challenged the pattern of public Christian rhetoric by claiming that much of the thinking and living of the church in the U.S.A. had lost its understanding of the tragic nature of human existence.  Some kinds of scientific rhetoric seek to provide a theodicy of necessity; in pop culture, the harshness of nature becomes "the circle of life."  Thus the horrors of the world can be put aside as somehow inherent in the system.  I'm not trying to claim that any of my scientist friends participate in this kind of reductionist philosophy, but I'm characterizing a kind of rhetorical repositioning of the aspects of life that one might call tragic.

It happens in other ways, too.  Self-help gurus try to convince us that we can avoid the tragic by simply aligning our lives the right way, taking the right steps, making the right friends, using the right techniques, and focusing on the right goals.  Positive thinkers try to make sure they have the right thoughts and say the right words so that they do not become the cause of their own pain and problems.

All of these kinds of philosophical convolutions help to hide from consciousness that the world does not happen strictly according to human choice and plan.  Part of the truth of tragedy is that an element of existence in this created world still can be called fortune.  Good fortune and bad fortune are not to be confused with a supernatural power of fate or determinism, nor to be confused with a quality attached to a person making him or her lucky or unlucky.  Fortune is a term naming what we acknowledge as factors beyond our control.

A hurricane hits land on the coast of one state and not another.  A tornado strikes one neighborhood and not the next one.  One person develops cancer, and another person with a very similar set of life circumstances does not.  One child grows tall and athletic, another excels at taking standardized tests, and another has physical features deemed beautiful by the culture.  I am not making an argument that these are utterly random occurrences, but they also are not matters strictly under human control.  When there is an understanding of fortune as an element of our existence, then it is also possible to conceive of the tragic.

We do not choose to be born.  When we are born, we do not choose our parents and their ancestral heritages.  We don't choose the neighborhoods in which our parents live when we come into the world.  We don't choose their religious and cultural background, nor the language that they speak and will teach us to speak.  All of these are elements of fortune.  Sometimes fortune allows a person to avoid many life difficulties.  Other times, it opens one up to the tragic.

One major example of how the absence of fortune and tragedy have hindered biblical interpretation is the well-known conversation Jesus has about wealth and poverty with his fellow diners and disciples.  The people having dinner are not very sympathetic toward a woman who comes to the dinner and anoints Jesus' feet with an expensive jar of perfumed oil.  One complains she could have been more practical and sold the perfume for a high price, using the money to help the poor.  Jesus is not very patient with that statement, and suggests that the speaker has surprised him with a sudden concern about poor people that was missing on the other days they had been together.  This is the story in the foreground when Jesus says, "The poor will always be with you."

Another biblical text is in the background, as Jesus' perspective on how to live is rooted in his study of the scriptures.  His statement is a quotation from one of the most important economic passages of the Bible: Deuteronomy 15.  This text provides the divine mandate for economic justice, for the safety net and economic security for all.  It says, "There will be no need among you," explaining that God will bless the community with what they need.  But it also says, "there will never cease to be some need," because things happen.  Bad fortune comes along.  Sometimes people make bad decisions, but more often, they find themselves in untenable situations.  Maybe the person in the home who contributed the most to their economic well being becomes sick or dies.  Maybe another family member requires close care, making it hard for workers to get the necessary work done to keep the house supplied with food and other goods.  Maybe a storm or flood or fire harms some households.  Maybe criminal behavior or war affects the viability of some people's economic situation.

Deuteronomy instructs the people to keep their hands open to the poor.  Don't be tightfisted.  Give what is needed to fulfill that mandate: there will be no need among you.  When the community finds people in need, they share the bounty of God.  Some will experience tragedy.  We cannot eliminate all tragedy.  But we can be present to make sure that tragedy does not leave people hungry or homeless.

Deuteronomy is reminding us that tragedy is part of life.  Our responsibility is to care for those who face tragedy.  Moreover, if there are ways to prevent some kinds of tragedies, if they are caused by systemic injustice, then we ought to be doing work to prevent the continued influence of those unjust systems.  Thinking good thoughts will not keep tragedy from happening nor make it go away.  No amount of self-help practices can allow persons to control their lives to the point that tragedy cannot strike.  The tragic is part of human life, part of creation's finitude.  It is in the commitment to one another, to walk together, to share the goods of creation among us all, to bear one another's burdens, to live as beloved community for which we were created and which is our purpose for living--there we find our defiance against the power of tragedy to control us.

Waiting for the Revealing of the Children of God

Romans 8:19-27

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

         From this text today, I want to reflect on the phrase, “Waiting for the revealing of the children of God.” 

Back in April, it was not my day to give words of tribute to our pastor, teacher, and friend, Dr. Turner, on the occasion of his retirement from teaching at Duke Divinity School.  But as I begin, I want to offer thanks that are relevant to this sermon today.  I could make a very long list, but I will limit to three words of thanks.

There are many things that I have to thank William C. Turner for.  I have met pastors of Black Baptist congregations before whose first reaction to me was to be suspicious of what kind of angle this white man is playing.  I don’t blame them.  They have good reason to be suspicious.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least part of Rev. Turner’s reaction to me when I showed up at Mt. Level was to wonder just what I might be up to.  But whatever his range of thoughts may have been, his public and official reaction to me was never anything but care and welcome.

            Some of you may think I still have a ways to go on this next matter, but I have to thank him for teaching me how to preach.  I was at best a mediocre preacher in my experience up to the time I came to Mt. Level.  I found in our conversations that Dr. Turner and I had similar ideas about what a sermon should accomplish and how it should be structured.  But I had never had such a week-by-week training school of how to make the most of the divine opportunity of standing behind this sacred desk.  While I still have much to learn, my colleagues at Shaw tell me I have become a decent preacher over the years.  You all have had to endure my training, periodically sitting while I inflict my schooling in this craft.  And you all have been very good to help me understand when I am doing better, or maybe not so much better.

            But by no means least of all, I have Dr. Turner to thank for helping me to grow into a robust and rich understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.  I explain to my students in theology class that I come from a kind of Baptists whose doctrine of the Trinity is weak, almost replacing the Holy Spirit with the Bible.  Dr. Turner’s writings on the tradition of the holiness churches and their relationship to the invisible institution of the black church before white people would allow free public worship by enslaved Christians—these have awakened me to a lively and powerful understanding of the Spirit’s work in the church.  His insights and guidance helped me not to ignore the way other theologians pointed me toward the Spirit’s work. 

            So today on the festival of Pentecost, the high holy day of the Spirit and the church, I cannot but stand before you to offer praise to God the Spirit who comes to us, pursues us, convicts us, calls us, fills us, and drives us onward toward God’s purpose for us.  We gather today to worship God who is Spirit, and we must worship in spirit and in truth.  We cannot come trampling the courts of our God who sees deeper into our hearts than we can see ourselves.  We cannot gather with pretense of self-righteousness before the convicting Spirit of God.  We cannot fast, cannot pray loud, wordy prayers, cannot try to impress others with our vocal expertise, cannot wear fashionable displays, cannot boast of our righteousness, and expect to please God who is Spirit.  We worship in truth.  We come and offer our righteousness as filthy rags before the Holy Spirit of God.  We humble ourselves to pray with pleading for the Spirit to fill us and guide us.  We gather in this sanctuary made sacred not by our feet, but by the Spirit who sets us on our feet every gifted day that we awaken into the world God has made.

            “Come, Spirit!  Come!” is our worship cry.  “Send the power!” is our plea to the God of heaven and earth.  Like the disappointed and confused, yet hopeful followers of Jesus in the first century, we bring ourselves together into one place, and behind closed doors we await the Spirit promised to us by Jesus.  We long to be nothing less than the very body of Christ, Christ’s presence on this piece of ground, a glimpse of the glory of God enlivened by the unction of the Spirit.  The church, the household of faith, gathers in the Spirit’s power to be the church, to be God’s people, the beloved community living as God created us to be, in fellowship with one another through our shared life in the Spirit.

            This is the festival we celebrate today, and it is good and right to seek to know how the Spirit works and leads us on a day like today.  The apostles found themselves surprised to know the way that the Holy Spirit would work among them.  Empowered by the Spirit’s movement, they served God in ways that they had not imagined.  The Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the festival also encountered the surprising work of the Spirit, hearing the preaching in their own languages from dozens of lands and locales in the known world.  Pentecost reminds us that no matter how much we thought we knew about God, God will still surprise us in the work of the Spirit.

            The texts for today include the story of the first Pentecost Sunday in the history of the church.  We have already acknowledged that story from Acts and will have it in mind throughout our worship.  However, I am focusing on the epistle for today.  It speaks to the kind of experience that the earliest church gathered in Jerusalem had faced as they waited for the coming of the Spirit with power.  Even though the first Pentecost of the church had happened during the first half of the third decade from the birth of Christ, what we might call the “30s,” Paul is writing more than two decades later about a similar pattern of experience in relation to the Spirit.  Yes, the Spirit had come at Pentecost with power.  Yet the Christians in Rome found themselves also waiting to see what the Spirit might be about to do. 

            This entire eighth chapter of Romans is a study of the work of the Spirit in the life of the church.  We cannot let ourselves try to create our own way of living, to be guided by our own desires apart from God’s transforming Spirit.  On our own, we will try to earn our place with God.  We will think God owes us something.  We will try to game the system and get over on God and one another.  But the Spirit lifts us out of this self-centered, selfish way.  The Spirit sets us free from sin and death.  We who are united to Christ and one another share in the Spirit.  The Spirit who enlivened the executed Jesus now gives life to our mortal bodies and to the corporate body of which we are limbs and organs.  As a people, we learn to listen for the Spirit’s voice.  The voice of the Spirit has not been isolated in any one of us, but each of us has the Spirit working to guide and shape our lives together as God’s people.  No one has a corner on the Spirit’s leadership. 

Thus, we all listen for the Spirit’s voice in one another.  We listen to the still, small voice of God calling for us from our inmost hearts.  We pray.  We study.  We praise.  We listen.  And often, we must wait.  Paul tells the Romans that in their time, during the fifth decade after Jesus’ birth, creation waits with eager longing.  Creation…that’s a big word, a big idea.  It’s kind of like a popular word from our era, the “universe.”  Creation means everything that exists that is not God, but which comes from God.  It is stars and planets, atoms and subatomic particles.  Creation is plants and animals, rocks and rivers.  Creation is food and drink, atmosphere and soil.  Creation is humanity in community, neighborhood and countryside.

So if our era of living is anything like the era of Paul the Apostle’s living, then we might conclude that also in our time, creation is waiting.  The land on which our sanctuary rests is waiting; the trees that line our parking areas, the grass in the cemetery, and the stones carved with our ancestors’ names are waiting. The timbers that were carted down from Granville County wait with eager longing.  The congregations worshiping across the street and down the road, the neighbors busy in their yards or homes, those sleeping in on a Sunday morning are all waiting.  The residents of Mill Grove who continue generations of family in this part of town as well as the immigrants from Mexico who found this neighborhood attractive and affordable wait with eager longing.  The workers at the Circle K, at the Bojangles, at the Waffle House, and at the Advance Auto Parts are waiting.  The worn out gravel roads, the boarded windows, the wrecked cars all in rows long to be set free from decay.  The poles that support power lines or t.v. and internet cables, the yellow stripes that divide lanes where we drive, even the deep pit where gravel is quarried wait for the revealing.  The new families who found a place to raise their kids off Hebron Road wait.  The hardworking folk who walk down our streets to reach the bus stop so they can go to work are eager.  The dogs and squirrels and cats and foxes and birds who live all around us—all creation is waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.

Are there any children of God in Mill Grove?  How will they be made evident?  What would make anyone believe that there are children of God here?  God made this world, this vast creation, with the purpose of building love and justice for all people, for all of God’s creatures.  In all our efforts and failures, we have not managed to live up to what God wants for us and our neighbors in this world.  Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church recounts our admirable history of serving God through more than a century and a half, and yet we read Paul’s words to the Romans and understand that creation is groaning in labor pains. 

There are labor pains in our neighborhood as flood waters rise through the sewer system into our sanctuary.  We wait for clean up of a mess and for proper repairs of a drainage system unready to handle the rains of the recent storm.

There are labor pains as teachers in our state, in West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, and across the land, stand up together to tell the legislature and state school board that enough is enough.  Students need textbooks.  Schools need buildings repaired.  Teachers need to be able to afford a place to live and food for their tables.  How long will politicians prefer to pay more for housing prisoners than for teaching children?

There are labor pains in Santa Fe, Texas, near the home of your own daughter Lydia Broadway who found herself driving by ambulance after ambulance on Friday morning a children with gunshot wounds were being driven to the hospital down the street from her home.  All creation groans, waiting for the revealing.  Where are the children of God?  Where are the people who live as Jesus led them to live?  Where are those who love God and neighbor?  Where are they who bind up the wounded they find on the side of the road?  Where will they be revealed.

Paul says that even we groan.  We wait as a woman in labor.  The urgency can be overwhelming.  The possibility of what may come lies beyond a struggle that we fear we may not be ready to face.  We long for our adoption into the family of God.  We know that Jesus has come to us, that we have followed him, that he has saved us, yet we find ourselves longing for the fulfillment of all that it means.  We feel in our bodies the need for the fullness of God, of the Spirit’s presence and power, of the transformation from one degree of glory to another.

All creation waits, longs, groans, for the Spirit to set us free.  Free to be what God made us to be.  Free to live as God calls us to live.  Free to share our lives with abandon, with relentless affection, with humble service toward one another.  Come, Spirit!  Rule in our hearts today!

For many of us, the calling of Vision 150 has become a sign of the Spirit’s presence.  [Vision 150 is a plan to enlarge our church’s ministry in our community, including replacing a no longer structurally sound building with a new facility that will support more community ministries.]  We have grown into the vision, perhaps initially skeptical or doubtful, waiting for the Spirit to take hold of us.  We have seen signs of the Spirit moving in new ministries and in concern for the use of the land beneath us.  We have talked about the need to know our neighbors.  We have recognized that this corner of our town has needs that we may, perhaps, be strategically situated to be able to help meet. 

And still we wait.  We wait to see an adequate down-payment toward building a facility.  We wait for the future breaking of ground and the passing of a treasured but weary landmark as it is replaced with functional spaces for ministry.  We wait with all creation to see what will be revealed.

On the other hand, if we claim to be the followers of Jesus, if we have given our lives to our Lord, if we have the Spirit living in us, then part of what this letter to the Romans is saying to us is that we are the ones creation is waiting for.  We are the children of God, or at least we are called to be them.  God has touched us, laid a hand on us, filled us with the Spirit, and we are the ones to be revealed as the children of God.

All around us, creation is waiting to see if we will step into our calling.  Will we be friends with the people who live on Denfield, Monk, Ryan, Bobs, Todd, Teel, Weeping Willow, Rainmaker, West, Sun Dried, Felicia, Summer Storm, Justice, Shay, Graymont, Melanie, Geranium, Miller, Cozart, Swanns Mill, Genlee, Magnolia Pointe, Fanning, Lillington, and more and more and more?  Will we learn from them what kind of community they long to be part of?  Will we make partnerships with neighbors to see Mill Grove flourish as more than just the houses near a fast food smorgasbord?  Will we reach beyond to Old Farm, Argonne Hills, Danube, and Dearborn, where many of our Mt. Level family live?  Will we be among the voices advocating for a just and equitable plan for improving or rebuilding Oxford Manor?  Creation all around us is waiting to see what will be revealed in us.

And creation waits because it is not clear what is coming.  Too many churches have closed themselves to their communities.  They live far away, drive to their building, dress in their fancy clothes, get entertained, make networking connections, and leave, hoping never to have to talk to anyone who might be walking near their church building.  Many churches have revealed themselves to be the latest version of a social club or an entertainment center, but not to be the children of God who are following Jesus toward God’s purpose of beloved community.  Too many churches are satisfied to share a couple of hours of the week together, but want to be left alone to make their own friends and plan their own activities without concern for the people who live across the street or down the block from where they gather to worship God in the Spirit.

What will be revealed on this piece of land?  Will it be the revealing of the children of God, the ones who love the people they meet on the street, who are willing to make new friends for the sake of the one who they have promised to follow?  Will it be the children of this world who are mostly concerned with keeping up with the Washingtons or the Johnsons and watching their favorite shows and hiding inside their houses to avoid associating with the people they don’t even care to know?  What will be revealed?  All creation is waiting, eagerly anticipating, groaning for redemption and liberation.

We don’t see it yet, but we hope.  We hope, and we wait with patience.  And in our waiting, we already start to live the way that shows what kind of world we want.  As the teachers of nonviolence have taught us, the path to the goal must take on the character of the goal.  If we want to live in a loving world, then the path to get to it is to start loving right here as we walk toward it.  If we want to live in a world with justice, then we need to hunger and thirst for justice as we seek to bring it into being.  If we want to live in a peaceful world, a world of shalom, then we have to become peaceable people making peace with one another as we walk toward our goal.  The means must be as pure as the end.  The road to beloved community is to start building a community of love.  The path to a friendly neighborhood is to start making friends with our neighbors.  We live in the hope of what we are being called to be, but do not yet see.

The Spirit drives us to be the church that Jesus called us into.  The Spirit gives us strength to make new relationships.  The Spirit gives us power to change the character of our neighborhood.  The Spirit calls us to make our home to be the foretaste of the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God in this world.  In our weakness, the Spirit helps us.  Even when we don’t know what to do first, the Spirit is way ahead of us, praying in us and with us for the fullness of God’s purpose to be revealed in us.

All creation waits, and the Spirit is drawing us forward.  The Spirit is ready to make us into the very people God wants us to be.  The Spirit works within and around us to make things happen that we are not sure can happen.  The Spirit is transforming us to be the revelation of the children of God in Durham, on Hebron Road, on this soil and among these trees, on the streets and in the homes.  Will we heed the Spirit?  Will we walk in the Spirit?  Will we let the Spirit reveal to us and to our neighbors that we can be what God has called us to be?

What a day that first Pentecost of the church was!  Peter went far beyond his own learning to proclaim a new word.  He recognized that the prophets had expected a day when a great transformation would begin.  Whatever the barriers and limits that people had put on themselves, blaming it all on God’s will and God’s plan, the word coming from Peter and the apostles on that day said that God would be shaking things up.  The young and old would all be blessed to see what God can do.  The men and the women would all proclaim the world of God with power.  On that day, Jerusalem changed dramatically, and the change had implications for dozens of cities and regions and language groups for miles in all directions.  It was not a day for narrow vision or limited possibilities.  The Spirit was doing the kind of work that would free creation from its bondage to decay.  The labor pains were ending with the reward of transformation.  The Spirit was bearing fruit that would expand and continue for millennia into the future.

Can we join that movement here in our neighborhood?  Will we join the gospel band?  Spirit, guide us!

Lord grant us the capacity to listen to your Spirit, to wait for the guidance we need, and to step out in public to reveal that as for Mt. Level and our house, we will serve the Lord.  We will be the children of God revealed as the loving koinonia, the communion of sharing our lives and our goods and our gifts with one another for the good of all creation.  Lord, send your Spirit to fill us.  Spirit, change us.  Spirit drive us forward.  Come, Spirit!  Amen, and amen!

***********

Benediction:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

Send forth Your Spirit; renew the face of the earth.

O God,

Who instructed the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit,

grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise,

and ever to rejoice in Your consolation.

Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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Waiting for Life to Happen

Back in November, this essay appeared as a guest post on Stan Dotson's blog, Daily Passages.

Daily Passages:  Prophetic Passage for Nov. 10
Guest writer Mike Broadway

Fellow Passengers:  This week’s Prophetic Passage (Isaiah 55:6-13) transports us to that inward place where we find ourselves twiddling our thumbs, spinning our wheels, waiting for life to happen.  The inward place may correspond with any number of outward places:  a doctor’s office waiting room, a line at the department of motor vehicles driver’s license office, a room full of people trying out for a part in a show, a bed in the dark after drinking too much caffeine.  Sometimes the place where we are waiting for life to happen is more like being trapped:  a job from hell, a jail cell, a mountain of debt, a deafening silence between spouses.

Isaiah was writing to the people of Judah in exile, far from home in Babylon.  As a displaced minority, most of them probably lived in substandard housing on marginal land.  The first generation remembered better times back home, and the new generation had heard the stories and built up the resentment that goes with being an outsider in the only home you have ever known.  It would not have been hard for these people to find themselves in that inward place of waiting for life to happen.  When will we go back home?  When will we get our piece of the pie?  Maybe after a little longer, things will start to go right.

At the very beginning of their sojourn in Babylon, Jeremiah had warned them about this kind of thinking.  He told his people in Babylon to settle down, build houses, have families, and make the most of life wherever they were.  As the bestselling title from Jon Kabat-Zinn cribs from ancient wisdom, WhereverYou Go, There You Are.  Now decades later, Isaiah speaks again into this pain in which people wait for life to happen while life is passing them by.

Anyone whose livelihood depends on the land might know this place of waiting during severe drought conditions.  The prophet describes the water cycle and the productivity of the farm to remind the people that much is happening when they may not be able to see it with their eyes.  Water disappears into the soil to do its work.  It evaporates invisibly and makes its way toward cooler altitudes to form clouds.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  More is going on than the drudgery of the daily routine.  When our eyes are fixed on the television or computer screen, a whole world of life is going on outside that tunnel of vision.  While I wait to get a new driver’s license, so many other people are getting theirs.  My moment of seeming stagnation means I am ignoring a universe of frenetic activity.  In my moment of isolation, God is present and loving in infinite worlds and ways.  Am I really destined to miss out on all that while I’m in a stuck place?

What the prophet wants his friends to remember is that their time is limited.  They do not have an endless number of mornings.  If they can’t change everything about their situation, they can at least try to find what God is doing in the middle of their little patch of the world.  Isaiah is convinced that when they start looking they will find with William Blake, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God . . . . There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”  They will find that at root, it’s all grace.  It is grace on grace on grace.  Grace all the way down.  When we’re waiting for life to happen, grace happens.  Settle into it.  Wallow around in it.  Breathe it in deep.  Go ahead on.

How about you?  Where does this prophetic passage take you on your journey?

An Ironic Reading of Psalm 8: Is Humanity All That Much?

Psalm 8

To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
  how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
  you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
  the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
  mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
  and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
  you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
  and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
  whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
  how majestic is your name in all the earth!

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I recently attended Emmaus Way community's Sunday worship gathering.  The preaching at Emmaus Way usually takes the form of a conversation, or at least a dialogical sermon.  Pastor Tim Conder led the conversation on Psalm 8, calling on persons in the congregation to read the Psalm aloud, then launching some open-ended questions for the gathered community to ponder and discuss.  If you are not familiar with Emmaus Way and Conder, then you may be interested to check out a book written by Conder and fellow pastor Dan Rhodes, Free for All:  Rediscovering the Bible in Community.  Dan and Tim and their congregation have developed a way of reading in community that seeks to embody what numerous theologians and church trendspotters have been describing in theory.  Now that I've given Emmaus Way and Free for All a plug, I'm going to shift away from that event and do some of my own reflections.

+++++++

I have been thinking about the reading and misreading of this Psalm for many years.  At the heart of it is the phrase that the Authorized Version (KJV) translates "a little lower than the angels."  "Angels" translates the Hebrew plural of the generic term for God:  Elohim.  Thus most recent translations have changed the sense of the text to say that humans are a little less than God.

Perhaps it is in part the reference to the angels that leads to the problem I have with common readings of the text.  I am not a person who rejects the notion of hierarchy in all of its possibilities, although I do reject the idea that systems of domination are a necessary part of human existence.  So theories of hierarchy always evoke a sharper scrutiny when I find them imposed upon or derived from biblical texts.  In conversations about this text, I usually hear the construction of a vast hierarchy of being.  This assumption rightly understands that God is that than which no greater can be conceived.  Then the ranks get assigned from higher to lower:  angels, humans, various land, air, and sea animals.  The heritage of dominion theology finds its way into Christian theology, to a great extent, from this passage linked to other biblical texts.

But is this Psalm an effort to assert the rank of humanity within the great chain of being?  Certainly we know that has been a common reading of it through many different eras and in many different places.  Perhaps that ought to be enough to convince me to just "leave it alone."  I can't do that.  The concept of dominion as domination has too great a corrupting influence for me to leave it alone.  

Churches teaching dominion as domination, combined with Americanized pre-millenialism, is what led former U.S. Secretary of the Interior James Watt to claim that industries should be allowed to rapidly use up the earth's resources without regard to pollution or damage to ecological systems.  For Watt and his fellow-travelers, God gave humans the earth to use, and since the world would end soon humans must get to work and use it up fast.  Dominion as domination is what led European Christian leaders, theologians, bishops, popes, kings, and speculators to theorize an Imperial World Order under domination of the white races, in which all other peoples of the world find their value and meaning in serving the good of the superior white Europeans.

If dominion as domination corrupts Christian theology and practice so horribly, then it seems incumbent on readers to think again about constructing an extensive hierarchical metaphysics behind, around, and in front of this Psalm.  There are other possibilities here.  Issues of empire, of environmental degradation, and of the potential for human damage to one another all may help the reader raise questions about received interpretations of this text.

One thing a reader has to remember about reading the Psalms is that they are the outcries of God's people in lament, praise, thanksgiving, fear, and longing.  They are not necessarily statements of divine ordering, even if they often do give insight into the divine order.  They are written as the words of Israel to God, not as divine decrees.  This characteristic of the Psalms helps to explain statements such as the one in Psalm 137 which proclaims a blessing upon those who "take your little ones and dash them against the rocks."  Infanticide, although it may serve to display an exaggerated or distorted anger toward enemies, will not bring a blessing from God.  The prayer of Psalm 137 expresses the vengeful orientation of some of the Jewish exiles.  It is not any kind of divine decree.  Elsewhere, the Psalms call on God to destroy enemies and other self-centered acts.  Just because someone, even someone as prestigious as King David, prayed such a prayer does not mean that the prayer expresses the will of God.

With that caveat in mind, Psalm 8 offers a vision of humanity's place in the grand scheme of things without necessarily revealing a divinely decreed ranking of species.  It says that humanity has been made a little less than divine, made to be the dominant force among species on earth.  It need not be interpreted to say that God made everything to be under humans, or made humans to dominate everything else.  Any of us could observe, without the need of a theory of hierarchical status, that in the grand scheme of this planet's existence, human beings are capable of great and fearful acts.  Our species, just short of the divine power of God, can burn down a forest, pollute a lake, wear out fertile land, poison waters, and more. 

I have heard some people say this Psalm can't be about environmental degradation because that is a modern concept that ancient peoples would not understand.  I disagree.  Archaeologists tell a history of the Greek islands which hosted prosperous communities only to have their soil eroded by deforestation, overpopulation, and overcultivation, leaving only bare rocky crags jutting out of the sea.  The ancient cities of Babylon were eventually abandoned and buried in sand, in part from the deforestation and overcultivation of land which became barren and underwent desertification.  In the wealthy city-states of the Maya, in fertile and productive regions, silting of rivers from deforestation and overpopulation led to the decline of highly civilized communities.  Ancient farmers of China, India, and Peru developed sophisticated methods of combating soil erosion, recognizing how it occurs and what its results would be.  So environmental degradation caused by human activity is not anew idea.  People of ancient times, before and after the Israel of the Psalmists, knew of this human possibility.  Human beings are capable of building up and destroying great life on vast tracts of land, across great empires.  Why else would we find existing in ancient Israelite law a plan for letting land lie fallow?  They knew that human activity can destroy productive farmland.

It is not uncommon in biblical interpretation to identify a statement as ironic, as representative of a view to be upheld for ridicule.  With that in mind, it is worth considering whether some of the latter portion of Psalm 8 might be rhetorically ironic.  Are there any textual clues that might make us alert to potential ironic language?  I think there may be more than one.

Clearly the Psalm displays a primary theme of the majesty and sovereignty of God over all creation.  The opening and closing lines bracket all else with this affirmation.  After the initial affirmations of God's greatness, the Psalm takes a surprising turn (in a text that scholars say is very difficult to translate) by saying that the cries of infants and babes protect the people from the enemies of God.  Hmmm... That is not an image of human might.  It is not elevating human cleverness to near divinity.  As we move beyond this difficult verse, the next part reverts to the majesty of God as the context to offer an inquiry of perplexity.  God's works are so great, who are we scrawny human beings?  Why would God even notice us?  Here we find an acknowledgment of the incapacity of humanity to approach the greatness of God's works.

Then comes the passage that many use to justify a divinely sanctioned hierarchy of beings.  "You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor."  It is not hard to imagine such words coming from the mouth of the emperor, or from the official mouthpiece charged with praising the emperor.  We know that this sort of praise of imperial power was widespread in the era of biblical writings, lasting even into the era of Eusebius's praise of Constantine in the post-canonical era.  Could it be that the Psalmist, who has been belittling human capacity in order to evoke humility before the majesty of God has now put these ironic words into the mouths of arrogant humanity?  We are just a little less than divine (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  We can run this world (into the ground).  King Soandso is the head man in charge of this world and day by day everything is getting better and better (oh, yeah, right!).

To say that all creation is "under their feet" is to acknowledge that it is far too easy to crush and stomp God's good creation to death.  It is to acknowledge that walking softly, leaving a light footprint, is necessary in this world.  Other species can disappear and be destroyed because of the power of humanity.  It is not to say that ever living thing and every non-living thing is our underling.  It is to say that we are capable of sustaining the good of all, or of destroying all of it, including ourselves.  The cattle and sheep, the wild creatures, birds, fish and sea creatures, are all also God's good creation.  An overestimate of human importance is another attempt to do what the first humans in the Garden did--an attempt to become like God.  Thus, the final line returns to the first.  It is God, not arrogant humanity, who is great.

I recognize that I am swimming upstream with this proposed interpretation.  Many doctrinal questions arise concerning the imago Dei, human uniqueness, visions of creation, and probably more.  Of course, this literary interpretation faces many possible objections from other literary readings, along with other types of textual analysis.  But I've chewed on it long enough and lived with it long enough to think that it at least deserves some conversational scrutiny.  I have, as always, plenty more to say.   But for now, have at it.

Economic Recovery for All 5: Faith Perspectives, Pt. 2

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ON THE ECONOMY
A Working Paper for North Carolina United Power
from an Interchange Among Theological Educators
July 2009

III. Faith Perspectives on Responding to the Crisis

B. Biblical, Theological, and Ethical Principles Guiding NCUP Actions and Campaigns in Response to the Economic Crisis

1. Interdependence of creation and humanity's birthright to share in God's gifts

Gratitude toward God, communal interdependence, and mutual accountability are at the core of a biblical understanding of economics, grounded in the Jewish scriptures and reaffirmed in the Christian scriptures. In the parable of the "rich fool," a man reaches the apex of prosperity because of bumper crops on his farm. He congratulates himself as if it were all his own doing, only to lose enjoyment of his success when he dies in his sleep (Luke 12:13-21). Human beings share a mutual obligation for the well-being of all. Cyprian of Carthage taught, "Whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from God's benefits and God's gifts, so as to prevent the whole human race from enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality." One "who, as a possessor in the earth, shares his returns and his fruits with the brothers and sisters, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of God" ("On the Unity of the Church," Ante-Nicene Fathers 5:25).

Indeed, if we are to flourish or even survive, we must act in love. We must receive what we need from others and we must share what they need from us. If we don’t receive from others, we will die. If we do not share what we have, then they will be less likely to share what we need from them; we both will die. We must act in love or face destruction.

According to Howard Thurman, “Human beings, all human beings, belong to each other, and anyone who shuts themselves away diminishes themselves, and anyone who shuts another away from themselves destroys themselves” (The Search for Common Ground, 104). Because of the way God created the world, our own, truest self-interest is inextricably tied to that of others. So, pursuing God’s kingdom, or righteousness, is to participate in and contribute to the great exchange, by which we all survive and flourish. It is to honor others by receiving their goods and virtues and, then, sharing our own goods and virtues vital to others. “We are,” as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” ("Letter from Birmingham Jail").

2. The unconditional protection of those vulnerable to loss of food, shelter, clothing, and other basic goods of life

The divine plan for humanity's flourishing requires that societies and communities manage their wealth toward this end: "There shall be no one in need among you" (Deut. 15:4). In the story of the fledgling church after the Spirit of God moved at Pentecost, the writer states the budding fulfillment of this teaching, "There was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34). The teachings of Christian theologians through the ages have reinforced this view of wealth. Martin Luther wrote of Deut. 15:4, “Now if God gave this commandment in the Old Testament, how much more ought we Christians be bound not only to allow no one to suffer want or to beg” (“A Treatise on Usury”).

The Year of Release, also called the Jubilee, offered a new beginning, a second chance, and a path to keep the entire economy flourishing for the long term. There must be no irreversible poverty, no unlimited acquisition of houses and lands, goods that should be distributed among all the community. Houses give shelter; fields provide food. Both are essential to making a livelihood.

The prophet Isaiah condemned those "who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!" (Isa. 5:8). The prophet Micah denounced those who “. . . covet fields and seize them, houses, and take them away . . . who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat and declare war against those who put nothing in their mouths” (Micah 2:2; 3:5). Nehemiah chastised the wealthy landowners who had accumulated numerous houses and fields because of the misfortunes of their neighbors, and he publicly denounced them for their selfish greed. The very identity of the people depended on their returning houses and lands to all the families in the community (Neh. 5:1-17). In that case, Nehemiah and the people managed to reverse the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Will people turn again toward the common good in our time? Will this society make a path for recovery to all classes of people who have suffered losses? Or will the economically powerful tighten their grip, leverage their advantages, and make recovery difficult or impossible for the unemployed, the foreclosed, and the uninsured? Basil of Caesarea preached, "If one who takes the clothing off another is called a thief, why give any other name to one who can clothe the naked and refuses to do so? The bread that you withhold belongs to the poor; the cape that you hide in your chest belongs to the naked; the shoes rotting in your house belong to those who must go unshod" (“Homily on Luke 12:18”).

What Are We Waiting For? Part 2

Here is the second part of the sermon, continued from the previous post.

What Are We Waiting For?
Part 2

Romans 8:12-25

Paul wrote in verse 19 that all creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. He goes on to say that creation groans in labor pains for redemption, for the renewal of creation, the new creation that God has already set in motion in the redeeming work of Jesus. All of creation groans. We try to make our way in life by using fossil fuels, but the system of manufacturing and consumption spins out of control until the world’s climate starts to be changed, pollution affects our air and waterways, and finally competition over limited supplies of fuel drives gasoline prices higher and higher. Creation groans in labor pains for redemption.

The two young men long for a world in which people treat one another well; they long for it without hope that it can really happen. The people across the Middle East and Africa long for rulers who will not sacrifice the lives of the people of the land in order to hold on to their power. They long for the powerful nations of the world to stop playing power games over their resources and lives. All creation groans for the children of God to be revealed. The poor people of this country long for their leaders to invest in people’s health and lives rather than more and more weapons. Creation is groaning all around us. The children of the world long for the opportunity to eat, learn, be healthy, and grow up to have families and homes, rather than being forced to work in sweatshops, to wander as refugees, or to be kidnapped to become child soldiers or part of the modern slave trade. All creation groans, longing for redemption.

Two Sundays ago, I had the opportunity to visit a former Duke Divinity student who is a pastor at a small town on the north side of Burlington, Vermont. Driving down through Vermont, along Lake Champlain and across the three large islands in the northern part of the lake, I had the privilege of seeing another piece of the beauty of God’s creation. This week in Kentucky a group of professors I was meeting with hiked up into the mountains to see a natural stone arch formed by the power of waters which once flowed where now there is a deep gorge and a thick forest. We don’t have to look very far beyond our parking lot at Mt. Level to see the great variety and complexity of the vegetation, animals, and landscape that make up the earth on which we are blessed to live.

Maybe if I could just step outside, get out of the rat race, and look at the beautiful countryside, I might be able to convince myself that things are just fine in the world and that nothing remains to be redeemed. But even in the midst of this beauty, I suspect you could tell me why what seems to be beautiful and complete falls short of perfection. Divisions among people because of skin color, social status, and economic opportunities no doubt affect the lives of people in Vermont just as they do in North Carolina. Economic and political decisions made in Washington, D. C., Beijing, Moscow, London, New Delhi, Jerusalem, and Teheran play a role in how many refugees are compelled to seek asylum or a new start. Offshore outsourcing of industry has turned the economy of places like North Carolina, Kentucky, and Vermont upside down, as factories close and jobs go away. Creation groans for our redemption.

Yes, all creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. Who are these children of God? What will we see in their revealing? What are we waiting for? First we should note that they are joint-heirs with Christ. They have been adopted through a new birth into the very family of God. They are God’s children. Previously they were orphans, living without love or hope, with no purpose or meaning, nothing in which to place their faith. But having been adopted, now they are heirs of all that God has given in creation. They are a new race of God’s children, acknowledging with Paul in Athens that God has made all nations of people of one blood. They are joined to Christ as the beloved of God, and they are joined to Christ in the mission of God’s love. They have received the Spirit of God that sets them free.

Why is the gift of the Spirit a gift of freedom? Having been joined to Christ and the Spirit, the children of God can set aside their fears of what the powers of the world might do to them. They can give up their fears of people who are different from them. They are free to live and love with the kind of self-giving commitment Jesus had. They can give up their own privileges for the sake of others as Jesus did. With their lives joined to Christ and the Spirit, nothing can destroy them. They can even risk their livelihood and their lives, knowing that God will be with them in life or in death. The whole of creation awaits the revealing of the children of God, a people who like Jesus are willing to suffer if they must to see God’s demands for justice carried out. They know that the blessings they receive from God are not for hoarding but for sharing. I think I would like to know that kind of person. I’d really like to have that kind of person live in my neighborhood. I’d be eager to meet a group of people who lived that way.

I hate to say it, but when I read about church people, I don’t always see people like this. When I talk to church people, I don’t always hear about the risks they are taking for the poor and marginalized, the beloved of Christ. Too often, so much attention and effort goes into managing the organization that the church forgets about being God’s plan to display the character and nature of God in the world. We may be the only image of Jesus that people ever see, so we don’t want to be out of focus and blurry.

Paul teaches us in Romans and elsewhere that the community of people who live God’s way are the very definition of the glory of God. He says that as we grow in grace, as we grow in our Christian lives, as we grow as God’s people, we will be transformed from one degree of glory to another. In this way, it will be as if we see the glory of God in a mirror. Did you get that? The glory of God is something Paul says we should see in the mirror, not because God is satisfied with us to stay stuck where we were on the day of our baptism, but because God will walk this road of life with us to change us to be more and more in the image of the true humanity revealed in Jesus Christ.

Jesus, our joint-heir, is the measure and standard of our humanity. He is the firstborn of many brothers and sisters who bear a family resemblance. Joined to him in baptism, we commit ourselves to become like him in his humility, his generosity, his faithfulness, his gentleness, his peacefulness, his patience, his kindness, his meekness, his hunger for justice, his purity of heart. People who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God are the very purpose God had for creation, the true image of God in humanity, the revealing of the glory of God. This is why all creation groans, longing for the glory of God to be revealed in the children of God.

So on the day of your baptism, you probably could not see all that God intends for you to be. Even years later, we see our failures and our shortcomings. We have far to go to take hold of that for which God has taken hold of us. So we press on toward the high calling. We run with perseverance the race set before us because of the glory that is being revealed to us and in us. We hope in Christ, for Christ is the hope of glory. With patience, we await that for which we have hoped, a creation which measures up to the goodness, beauty, and justice God has intended from before the foundation of the world.

The Maker and Appraiser, part 2
Jeremiah 18:1-11

(This was the Men's Day message for the 8 am service at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church on September 9, 2007.)

If we turn to today’s text, I think we can gain some solid footing for an answer. Jeremiah’s prophetic hermeneutic urged the people of Jerusalem in his day to think again about the measure of a man. He told them about going down to the potter’s house to watch the skilled craftsman work. The potter was throwing clay on the wheel. He was shaping it with his hands and maybe with some specialized tools of the trade. A lump of clay that seemed ready for service was being transformed into a pot, a vessel, a useful implement and a thing of beauty. But somewhere along the process, things went wrong. The clay took on a mind of its own. It warped and got out of shape. A crack appeared in the soft clay that would be a fatal flaw in light of the purpose the potter had for the vessel. As Jeremiah said, the vessel “was spoiled in the potter’s hand.” What had begun to look like a fine clay pot turned out to be a warped, cracked, useless vessel.

Had it been our day, in our throwaway society, we might have tossed it in the landfill and run out to Wal-Mart to replace it with something else we can throw away next month. Sometimes that’s the way our society deals with boys and men, too. When they get out of hand, when their problems get too big to handle, when their frustration builds up to the point of lashing out, we give up on them. The problems seem to hard to solve, so we throw them away. Put them out of school. Put them out of the house. Put them in the jail. Put them out on the street. Put them in the ground. But human beings are not throwaway commodities. We are not single-use, disposable items. Thank God for showing Jeremiah another way.

When the vessel was spoiled, the potter did not throw it away. The potter reworked it. He found the hard spot in the lump of clay and worked it with his hands until it become smooth and malleable. He kneaded the place that had cracked back into the rest of the lump to get rid of the variations in moisture and flexibility and build up the stability in the clay. He wanted the lump of clay to have the character required to make a pot hold together, be useful, and last a long time. He wanted it to be sturdy so that it could be adorned and display the beauty and goodness that already lay within it as a potentiality. So Jeremiah said, “he reworked it.”
The skilled potter did not go out on the street and grab someone who knew nothing about the craft to ask, “What should I do with this?” No, the skilled potter was both the maker and the appraiser. The potter knew how to make a pot, and he also knew a good pot from a bad pot. He knew good, reusable clay when he examined it. He had the ability to judge when a pot was spoiled in the making. He could appraise the measure of a clay pot.

I went outside this week and found a surveying crew next door. Someone is thinking about buying the house there. They want to know exactly what piece of land they are buying. Now I could have walked over and told them that as I see it, the property line runs along this driveway and this fence, comes to about right here and runs up through those bushes to a spot on the hill. But they don’t want that kind of sloppy guesswork. They want someone who knows how to spot and measure the lot. The survey crew was skilled, had precise equipment, and was trained to locate each corner of the lot.

Another example more directly about appraisal may be helpful here. Apparently it has become very popular to go to a big meeting hall, carrying some old stuff from your house, and ask experts how much it is worth. I’ve seen a couple of television programs that show people telling a story about a piece of furniture, a photograph, a sports souvenir, or some other item. Then an appraiser responds with some historical information, offers a few tidbits of trivia, and finally states an estimate of the dollar value of the item. It’s not a wild guess, but it’s based on experience of seeing other similar items and evaluating their condition. An appraiser knows a lot about certain kinds of items and is therefore qualified to make a statement about their value.

The potter was both the maker and the appraiser. Who knew more about the pots than the one who made them? He could tell when they would function and when they would fail. He could evaluate their strength and stability. He could appraise their usefulness, their value, their worth. And if he saw that they fell short of what they should be, he could rework them. It was his skill that gave them their value in the first place. He used high quality materials and high quality methods to produce a high quality product. He put high quality labor into the task and took pride in doing good work. And when he needed to, he reworked the pot to make sure it met the standards of quality that matched the vision of the maker.

Thanks be to God for the potter that reworked the clay. On Men’s Day, we need to praise the God who reworks spoiled lumps of clay. We need to call on that same God to rework our spoiled lives and make us useful, good, beautiful vessels for God’s service. God will rework us. Turn to your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, God will rework you.” We need to admit our sins, the ways that we have been spoiled for service to God, and pray, “God, rework me.” Say it with me, “God, rework me.” And Mt. Level needs to be ready to let go of the pebbles that are mixed up in our clay, the cracks in our vessel, and cry out, “God, rework us.” We know we are flawed as persons and as a congregation. We know we leak and can’t sit right without wobbling. We know we do stuff we don’t need to do while we let slip away things we ought to have done. But the God who is like the potter has no intention to toss us in the trash heap.

God will rework us. It may not all feel good. An effective muscle massage may have to work some sore spots to get the tightness and knots out that are keeping us down. A successful cycle of physical therapy means fighting through some tears when the pain seems more than we can bear. But all through the struggle, and waiting for us at the other end of the struggle is the God we know in Jesus Christ. God has already envisioned what we are to become. And God’s purpose for men, and for all of us, is that we grow up to the measure of true humanity in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the measuring tool. And God is able to appraise the measure of a man because God’s own self became flesh, became clay, and lived among us. He has thorough inside knowledge of what a human being is capable of being. He is the maker, he is present in creation with us, and he is the appraiser, the measurer. God knows the measure of a man. God has shown us the measure of a man. God will rework us into the measure of a man.

A good measuring tool must be precision made. If you are trying to measure a board, you don’t want a measuring tape that marks off a foot as 12 inches, give or take an inch. You need to know precisely how many feet and inches you measure. Otherwise what you build will be crooked and unstable. If you are trying to measure a piece of fabric, you don’t want an inch to be sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. You want a tape that is precise. Otherwise, the waistband may not go around you when you finish, or one leg of the pants may be shorter than the other.

Well, Jesus is the precise measuring tool for humanity. He is begotten from eternity, the very Word of God, the true Adam, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. He is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. He knew temptation just as we do, but he did not give in to sin and evil. He was faithful to the end. He loved those God had sent his way to the end, even to his death on the Cross. He is the firstborn of the dead, the firstborn of many brothers and sister. He is the measure of humanity. He was loving, just, and merciful in the use of power. He took time to give of himself to those who could not repay him, and he took the lowest place when he could have tried to claim he highest place. He was the same non-violent, faithful friend in private and public, in comfort and in trouble.

Today on Men’s Day, I profess to you that Jesus is the measure of a man. And just as God raised him from the dead, God will rework you and bring you from death to life, out of darkness into his marvelous light. God will rework us. God, rework us. God, rework us. Say it with me, “God, rework us.”

Perhaps this morning you have come to see that the flaws and irregularities of the way you are living have spoiled you as a vessel of love, as a vessel of service. This may be the day when you need for the first time to say, “God, rework me.” This may be your hour to come to Jesus, to call on him to be the Lord of your life. If you want to place your life into the hands of the potter who is your maker, who measures by a righteous standard of love and grace, then come to follow Jesus today.

Perhaps you already have started down the path of following Jesus, but you find yourself wandering and going astray. Maybe you simply have lost the passion of bringing good news to the poor and setting at liberty those who are oppressed. Maybe you have left off the weightier matters of justice and mercy, and find yourself going through the motions of tithing your mint and your cumin. Your heart is on treasures that rust and rot and can be stolen away. This may be your day to come to God and say, “Rework me to be a useful vessel for your service. Restore unto me the joy of my salvation. Make me a channel of blessing to all those I meet.”

There may be someone here who is a follower of Jesus but is not a member of a congregation in Durham. Maybe you are actively looking for a church home. Or maybe you have been drifting without committing yourself to be part of the work of a church. If the Holy Spirit is prodding you to put your life alongside the lives of others who are serving God here at Mt. Level, then don’t resist. Come and unite with this congregation today, so that God can rework all of us together to be a better witness to God’s love in this community.

The doors of the church are open. Whosoever will may come.

We turned the corner at Dorgenois Street and Fourth Street in the Central City of New Orleans, and we saw a man and woman sitting on the stoop of a house. The woman's eyes showed recognition as we realized we had spoken on another corner a block away, just a few minutes before. The man was all smiles, with a wiry build, clutching in his hands the crook of a walking cane. Their stoop was on the shady side of the street.

All along the block, and in all the adjoining blocks, we had been cataloguing the conditions of a battered and deserted neighborhood. There were empty lots where homes, churches and businesses once stood. Scattered among them were collapsed buildings leaning into a seemingly endless waiting. A few of the structures stood gutted, some with piles of debris outside, their emptiness echoing the empty promises of financial help just down the road. Most of the blocks had only a handful of residents where not so long ago the hustle and bustle of people had filled the area.

We exchanged greetings, "How y'all doing?" I explained that we were working in the neighborhood to help out Rev. Aldon Cotton from Jerusalem Baptist Church.

"Which Rev. Cotton? There's two Cottons . . . " the man went on to explain. He was wearing the monogrammed uniform of a retail worker, talking with his neighbor. He went on to tell us that the two Rev. Cottons in this neighborhood are brothers. After getting some more information from us about which one we knew, he affirmed, "Yes," he knew the Rev. Cotton whose church had fallen down in the storm. We discussed Jerusalem Baptist Church's plans to rebuild across the street from their previous location. He told us, "That Rev. Cotton is the best man for us. He's always doing good."

Throughout the day we had been recording information about a twenty-three block area in Central City, sometimes called Uptown. It is bounded by Broad Street on the north, Martin Luther King Boulevard on the on the east, Galvez Street on the south, and Toledano Street on the west. As many as fifteen churches gathered in this neighborhood before Hurricane Katrina. Now the people are gone, the pastors have relocated for a while, and the buildings left standing are unusable. Slowly some people are finding their way back to fix their houses. Even more slowly the promised funds from The Road Home are trickling through the system to a few. Others, not believing the money will ever make it to them, are finding ways to get the houses rebuilt and rehabilitated. And everyone else is wondering when or if they might sell their property and leave it all behind.

Some of the pastors in New Orleans have come together to build a vision for the future of their churches and for the city of New Orleans. They are letting their lives and ministries be intermingled so that they can be strengthened in their skills, their resolve and their hope. They have targeted certain zones in New Orleans, from the Central City to the Ninth Ward and beyond. The zones are selected because of the severity of their need in the post-Katrina devastation.

These zones used to have low-cost housing, both rental and owner-occupied. They were working-class neighborhoods, made up of families that include a growing segment of the new U. S. economy, the working poor whose toil builds corporate profits while they can't make enough money to afford what they need to get by. These are the neighborhoods that some local and outside developers would love to buy up for almost nothing so that they can make a landfall profit by creating the next trendy location for the up-and-coming professionals. There are leaders and lenders who are hoping the scattered residents of these neighborhoods never come back.

Four Shaw University Divinity School students walked in pairs around these twenty-three blocks. They looked at the door frames of battered houses to find a street address. At some locations, an address had been spray-painted on the asphalt in front of the house by one of the utility companies doing its work. The many vacant lots don't have an address posted anywhere, so the students have to count the spaces and fill in the blanks of addresses between one house and another. Here and there a house is being renovated, and occasionally they find one whose residents have moved back in. Along the way they meet construction crews putting up sheathing, homeowners packing remnants of sheet rock into trash bags, mechanics working on cars in a reopened auto repair shop, and contractors checking out properties.

One contractor in his car greeted Rev. Cotton and asked how his church was doing. As their conversation continued, the man explained that he was driving through the neighborhood to see if anyone was in need of some help that he could offer. Eventually, he took the pastor, the students, their professor, and another fellow doing some contract work to lunch. While "th'owing down" some New Orleans soul food, we discussed the needs of the churches and the community. We discussed the limits of hope in programs offered by the official political structures.

Over and over, neighborhood people, contractors, church members, and pastors have reiterated the same message: if our communities have any hope for renewal, it will have to be led by the churches. There are not any other institutions who have the vital interest of our communities at heart. And if the churches do not realize their calling to minister in this moment of crisis and opportunity, entire neighborhoods, their heritage and family ties, their accomplishments and traditions will be lost. Moreover, the churches will have failed to do what their Lord and Savior said he came to do, to preach good news to the poor. It is no time for empty preaching and promises. The good news must be tangible.

Rev. Cotton and his colleagues are working to see the strength of their relationships begin to bear fruit in solidarity and joint action. They need the descriptions of the properties, block by block, to show that they know the challenges they are up against. They need to demonstrate that they have a plan for using the funds they are requesting.

They also need this data to persuade other pastors that together they can make a difference. When the other pastors can see just how many lots, how many houses need rehabilitation, and ultimately who wants to come back and who wants to sell, they will realize that this is not an impossible and unmanageable task. And they will see that it is not Rev. Cotton or some other pastor trying to take over the whole neighborhood and shut them out. The Rev. Cotton whose church got destroyed longs for the day when all the churches in his neighborhood can share their gifts and pool their efforts to make Central City a beacon of the churches' capacity to renew, to change, to redeem a community.

So we walked on in the late spring heat and humidity. It was a good day to be outside and see the beauty of God's creation. We also were seeing the ways that human power used for domination and sin can let a thriving community become a wasteland. The God who created it all is the same one who promised to bring forth springs in the desert and to make a new shoot grow out of the stump that had been cut off. Churches Supporting Churches is working on getting the debris out of that spring so that the waters of life can flow freely and abundantly in New Orleans. They are watering that stump and nurturing the new growth. And all creation awaits the flowering of the shoot of Jesse, the seed growing secretly, the sudden appearance of the Reign of God on Fourth Street.