The City
Genesis 11: 1-9
Luke 13: 31-35
February 5, 1995
Every so often, one gets mugged on the way to preaching a sermon. Usually, I prepare sermons way in advance. And this Sunday was no different. I had worked diligently on the topic of aging. But, last week, just before I was to leave for a conference, I noticed that Bill had set this Sunday as a Mass for the City. And even though our mine is aging, I thought the two topics would not necessarily fit, back to the drawing board. And all this week, I’ve been praying, thinking, and writing about the city.
When we ask what the Bible has to say about city life, we have to answer that the early Hebrews took a very dim view of city life. The classic story is found in Genesis where the people of the earth got together to build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. Clearly, these folks in Babel had in mind to build a “once and for all” – from here to eternity – place. A heavenly city that would last for all time,
Now, whether Babel is a city, or it simply is a symbol of our longing to produce something lasting, something permanent, something indestructible, something of excellence, something gaudily – I don’t know. But this we do know. God took a dim view of this first city. And thus we read that God came down and confused the people, and scattered them abroad all over the face of the earth.
This dim view is an easy one to embrace if you are visiting Tucson and happen to find yourself in one of the many traffic jams that seem to magically appear around four or five o’clock. Or if you’re undergoing a baptism of venom from some native who thinks that all newcomers ought to go back to where they came. Or if you’re the victim of our ever-frequent robberies. It’s easy to take a dim view when we read of all the violence, the anger, the poverty, the poor schooling, the run-down neighborhoods. It’s easy to wonder if God has turned his back on our urban culture. But deep down inside, most of us have some idea that our God is the God of all creation and doesn’t turn from any part of creation, and to separate God from the city is like separating blood from a body
In James Michener’s novel, ‘The Source,” there is a passage which illustrates what I mean. It gives us a due of how God is found in the midst of the urban culture. It’s a dialogue between an old desert tribal chieftain and his God. First, Zadok, the old patriarch, speaks: me in the desert and said, ‘Zadok… it is time for you to leave the desert and occupy the walled town.’ I was afraid of the town.’ The patriarch replies, But I And the voice of God says, As long as you live, old man, you will be free to ignore my commands. But in time, I will grow impatient.’
But God,’ Zadok says, ‘inside the walls it will not be easy for me to speak with you.’ God replies, But I shall be there.”‘
Do we believe that? Is God present within our urban culture? Or do we really believe that God has washed her hands of the whole mess? I used to live in New York, and people used to say: ‘It’s a nice place to visit, but I would hate to live there.” Do we really think that’s what God says about our cities?
Jesus certainly didn’t believe this. We read in the Gospel: “0 Jerusalem, O Jerusalem – how often would I have gathered your children together – as a hen gathers her brood.”
Did you know there are only two times that the Bible records that Jesus wept? One is over the apparent death of his close friend Lazarus. And the other is over the city. The city for Jesus was a symbol of hope – the symbol of the heavenly, the place of destiny.
Now let’s get honest for a minute. And let’s start mending and stop preaching. It’s tough to see the city through Jesus’ eyes. For most of us, the city is a necessary evil- the place where we earn a living, the place of entertainment, but not a holy place. Not a place where we might encounter God. On a mountain top, we might find God, maybe. In a starlit night, sure -but in a traffic jam, no way. We’ve been taught, carefully taught, that faith, that religion, and even that God is found privately. The public, the corporate, is something we endure, but it is not the realm of God. Most of us act out our faith like a private business or a private contract. We construct our own private world. And our relationship to God is found in our own private saints (with the parish, the Bible, the ministry, existing to support and. nourish our own private relationship to God.)
Recently, a young black professor at Yale named Steven Carter published a book about the culture of disbelief and denial. And as a religious leader, I can certainly attest to that. We don’t believe God is present in our urban culture. We deny that God can be found in the public realm.
I used to have a parish in the Connecticut suburbs. Every so often, I would ride the commuter train into the city with parishioners. If any of you have had that experience, you know that you pass from the lush suburban, treelined scene abruptly into the city. But before you arrive at Grand Central, you have to pass through some of the worst neighborhoods in Harlem. I was always amazed at how that scene never seemed to register on my parishioners. One day, I had the temerity to ask a commuter, and this is what he told me. ‘I have my own private concerns – that score is the concern of the politicians, the city government, the social workers.” And then he told me about the two most important rules of life, which every city dweller learns at a young age. Those rules are: “Don’t stick your neck out,” and ‘Don’t stick your nose in another’s business.”
Well, good people, Jesus did stick his neck out. It certainly wasn’t endorsing family values. Jesus stuck his nose into the city’s business because he realized the business of the city was God’s business. And the welfare of the city was God’s welfare. And that God was to be found in the midst of the urban culture, not simply in the churches of his day, we followers of Jesus have lost that feeling. Compassion is something that we think of only on a private, one-to-one basis. Concern for the city is a lost art. Several years ago, when I was still living in suburbia, a letter appeared in the OPED section of the New York Times. I cut it out and kept it for it reminded me then as well as now – that concern for the city is important for Christians. It was from a newsman writing to an eight-year-old resident of a tiny fishing village in Newfoundland.
‘Dear Michelle:
Someday, I want to show you my city. You love beauty. I want to see your eyes as you take in the museum. I want you to be able to browse through the shops. I want you to see the views (of the mountains) from my window.
You like to try new things and I want to show you some fresh fruits and vegetables at my Mexican grocer’s. I want you to enjoy a quiche at a sidewalk cafe, eat some noodles in a Chinese restaurant, and eat a filet mignon at a steakhouse.
And because your shopping is generally done in the pages of the Sears catalogue, I’d like you to visit Saks, Lord and Taylor, and Bloomingdale’s. Yes, you would have to be very rich to buy much there, but every once in awhile, everyone should feel special.
I want to take you to your first play, see modern dance, and hear a concert.
But despite all this, I would be hesitant about bringing you here. What will you think of us when you see men and women looking for food in trash baskets down the block from stores crammed with foods? Will you forgive when you see us building resort hotels and shopping malls while homeless people sleep in the streets?
I’m afraid you will ask me to take my restaurants and fancy foods and use my money to help solve some of the problems of my world.
There are reasons why it doesn’t work that way, Michelle, but those reasons can’t be very important to you, coming from a village where no one has much, but people are for and take care of each other.
I don’t understand how we got this way, Michelle. I don’t understand why, as a culture, we have moved from where you are to where I am, and we’ve grown these ugly tumors.
As you depart this place, I hope you’ll remember how it was back in a more compassionate time. And then I hope you’ll remember that God is concerned with this city and can be found in the midst of the city’s inhabitants.”
Well, here we are living, visiting, working, playing in this city of ours. We don’t have a choice over whether God is here or not. But we do have a choice over whether to follow Jesus into the city and to show compassion for the whole city. Can we say with Jesus: “0 Tucson, O Tucson, how often would I have gathered your children together-
I was at a conference this week, and one of the seminars was on contemporary preaching. The leader said every sermon ought to end with some action that the hearer can do. In the spirit of that learning, I would ask you to take the prayer we are about to pray and whenever you think about our city, utter these words or something like them –
Christ, look upon this city
And keep our sympathy, and pity Fresh and our faces heavenward Lest we grow hard.
AMEN