Guarding the city

Contemplate the fate of cities in our world through the centuries. They rise and fall like tides on the sea. The great cities of today are often built upon the rubble of great cities of the past. Historically, losing a city completely, whether to sudden catastrophe or long decay, is nothing new to the human race.

Cities are living social systems, and they are mortal. They are vulnerable to war, economics, weather, disease, and changing demographics both natural and sociological. They respond to positive and negative input from natural resources, commerce, education, medicine, and public morality.

Cities dominate the landscape for humans. They are the centers of learning, business, transportation, and healthcare. They are also centers of moral and ecological pollution.

Only 4 percent of the human population of the world lived in cities in 1800. Today 45 percent of all humans reside in urban areas. But 2025 that number will grow to 60 percent.

We are on target as followers of Jesus to pray for and focus our work in the City of New Orleans. We are the church of Jesus Christ in our city, and we have an enormous opportunity and challenge before us. Through the preaching and teaching of the good news of Jesus Christ, through practical deeds of kindness and love, and through addressing systemic evils and injustices in our city, we promote the welfare of all citizens and bless our city.

God is the only one who can protect our city. “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (Psalm 127:1b). God is already and always at work in New Orleans. Therefore, we find out what God is doing in our city and join him in his work. We do not ask God to join us. We seek to join him.

How do we identify the activity of God in our city? We know that God cares for those in need. This truth is explicit throughout scripture. “ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). If we reach out to those in need, we are following the hand of God. If we speak words of comfort to the bereaved, we are following the voice of God. God is ahead of us with the hurting, and he does not leave their sides. God does not simply make weekly or monthly forays into needy places—he lives there. His heart is with the wounded.

We are surrounded by need — overwhelmed by need. When we realize that God is with the hurting, the next step is to find the people along our own path who need us. We follow Christ when we reach out to them. The way of the cross is the way of suffering. The suffering that persons around us endure is tragic and inexplicable. But it is the one reality which most often opens us to divine intervention and insight. God wants us to feed the hungry because he wants them to eat. But he also wants to speak his love to them.

Our city is so in need of God’s hope and healing. Let’s engage the persons and structures as we have opportunity, and let’s do so knowing that God is the one who must give deliver on the hope and healing.

I Have Seen the Lord!

“I have seen the Lord!” This is Mary Magdalene’s report to the disciples.

Seeing the empty tomb is startling, confusing, and amazing. Seeing angels is fearful and astonishing. But seeing Jesus is the best possible news in this universe. Mary saw Jesus when she was left alone in the garden.

Soon it would be Peter who would say, “I have seen the Lord,” and then John and the other disciples. Thomas missed the first group meeting with Jesus and refused to believe when he was told they had seen the Lord. Like so many of us, he had to see for himself. And when Jesus invited him to put his finger in his wounds and “be not faithless, but believing,” even doubting Thomas abandoned his skepticism and embraced Jesus as “my Lord and my God.”

The two people on the Road to Emmaus walked and talked with Jesus and did not realize until he broke the bread. I think that is when they saw the wounded hands. They returned to Jerusalem and told the disciples, “It is true! The Lord is risen! (Luke 24:34).

Saul of Tarsus would see the risen Christ on the Damascus Road and believe. In his first letter to the church at Corinth he wrote that Jesus was seen by over 500 people at one time (1 Corinthian 15:6).

These testimonies of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, together with the evidence of the empty tomb and the coming of the Holy Spirit, gave birth to the church of Jesus Christ.

We come to the garden alone. Each one of us enters the garden with personal questions and beliefs. We stand before the empty tomb alone in mind and heart. Here before the tomb we make our personal decision and live with that personal choice.

Saints Triumphant!

Jesus rode a colt on his triumphal entry, and our football team did the same last night.

I never prayed that the New Orleans Saints would win the Super Bowl, although I was running in circles in my living room, screaming my head off when it happened.

I prayed with the team in their chapel services several times, but I did not pray for them to win. Win or lose, my prayers were that they would respond with the Christian character I know many of them possess. I prayed that they would give God the glory, speak unselfishly, and embrace their role as civic leaders and cheerleaders in a city still struggling to gain its footing.

I prayed for the New Orleans Saints. The players are young men with great athletic abilities under an intense spotlight. They respond spontaneously when the microphones are thrust in front of them. They face great temptations and great opportunities all at once.

My prayers were answered last night. By and large, the Saints responded to their astonishing victory with joy and self-restraint, celebration and thanksgiving, and often an explicit acknowledgment of faith in God. I was proud of them.

The term “Saints,” meaning “holy ones,” comes right out of the Bible. It is used most often in the letters of the Apostle Paul to refer to the members of the churches. It points to the holiness of God which he applies to us through the death of Christ upon the cross. We are “set apart” for God when we trust Christ as Savior and Lord. Saints are special in that they have been set apart for the purposes of God.

“Saints” also comes right out of New Orleans. We are and have been the “city of the saints” from the names of our streets to the names of our many churches (Catholic, Protestant, and others) to the monuments in our parks. You will not visit a city in America with more visible religious roots or more spiritual public culture.

The team here uses a religious term to designate their players. We use a religious symbol—the fleur de lis—as our team emblem. Down here in the bayou, we mean it. “Bless you, boys,” is our common commendation for these star athletes. Three archbishops have blessed this team with their interest and widely publicized attendance at games. Their presence is always front page news. So also is the display of the bones of Mary Magdalene and Ash Wednesday.

The local newspaper put a religious spin on the pilgrimage of our Saints. “Hell froze over” when we won the NFC championship, and we were “at heaven’s gate,” according to the headlines. The Saints went marching in last night. We were all in their number. Monday’s front page said it all: “Amen! After 43 years, our prayers are answered.”

The country—and maybe the world—have been cheering for us because we were the underdog. Our city and region are still struggling back to normalcy from a disaster of staggering proportions. The Saints have given a resounding answer to the question, “Can New Orleans recover?”

We are happy to be “America’s team” this year. We have been the subject of prayers and the destination of thousands of mission teams since Hurricane Katrina visited our shores. This outpouring of benevolence, perhaps unparalleled in the history of America, is followed appropriately by a great victory which all caring souls can embrace. As the Indianapolis Colts knew, the Super Bowl was a road game for them and a home game for the Saints.

New Orleans is an enigma, especially to those who view it from the outside, but also to us who live and work here. The city of the Saints is known to be one of the country’s flesh markets. The television shots bounced back and forth last night between Sun Life Stadium in Miami and the wall-to-wall, throbbing party on Bourbon Street. Is there any other place on earth where people dressed like nuns and popes lead parades of revelers? Is there another city where “revelers” is common lingo for Super Bowl enthusiasts?

Professional athletic competition may be mostly about entertainment, but it is also about character. The courage, determination and team work of the athletes inspire us to greater effort and better performance in our own contests of faith and strength.

The Saints are leading the charge in a city that aims to do better on every front. With the highest per capita murder rate in America and the lowest literacy rate and the highest rate of child hunger and rampant public corruption, the urgent needs in New Orleans transcend our tourist-focused Bourbon Street. The time for prayer has just begun.

The city elected a new mayor Saturday, Mitch Landrieu. Now there is a man to pray for! The son of a former mayor and brother of a current United States senator, “Mitch” won a landslide victory in the primary against five opponents—as startling a win as the Super Bowl.

The church of Jesus Christ, full of worshiping saints, is marching boldly into the future of this city, energized by the Holy Spirit, full of hope and faith, and prepared to do battle for the souls who live here. With the Good Samaritan as our model, we plunge into the fray eager to demonstrate the care of Christ in “the city that care forgot.”

Homeless Shelter Cold Snap

Beth is an employee of Winn-Dixie. She works at night in the bakery. She also has experience working in a pharmacy. She is articulate, bright, and interesting. I met her Friday night at the Allie Mae Williams Auditorium. She is homeless.

She was working to husband her funds so that she could spend the night Sunday night in a hotel. I saw her again Sunday night at dinner at the temporary homeless shelter, and she told me that she would not be spending the night. She came to eat, but she had a hotel room for the night.

Beth is pleasant and full of smiles. I do not know why she is homeless. I do not think it has to do with drug use or mental illness.

Rocky is a big talker. He, too, is interesting and cheerful and homeless.

Thanks to all who helped and gave and served and prayed us through this cold weekend just past. We communicated the love of Christ to many homeless people who told me how grateful they are for the food and other goods we provided them. We worked alongside city employees, Unity for the Homeless, and other churches to man the center and feed the people.

God is good to give us new friends and new connections to people who are very precious to him.

Soggy Days

My life behind the levee is all about water.

The rain gauge overflowed this morning for the second time in four days meaning that I have received at least 18 inches of rain at my house in the last eight days. More is on the way. I am catching tiny rivulets in pans in front of the fireplace and have been in the attic and on the roof searching for the leak.

My brother, Jonathan Paul, was born on this day 51 years ago. That also was a blue day for me. I already had three brothers, and I wanted a sister really badly. They tell me I was inconsolable when the sad news came, so they named the little boy “Jonathan” because he was the best friend of David.

I felt a little better, but it greatly distressed my older brother, Timothy, the eldest child, who thought that this fifth sibling should be named in reference to him rather than a noisy five-year-old like me. So Jon’s middle name is “Paul” because Paul was the close friend of Timothy.

You make the best of rainy days. And usually in hindsight they are not as disappointing as they seem at first. Jonathan Paul turned out to be useful to Tim and me in a number of ways. He made an interesting target when we got our new pop guns, and he took the girl’s part in our quartet.

Something good will come of all this rain, I am sure. The storm drains in the parking lots at the church were clogged a few days ago, and the lower parking lot turned into a retention pond. But at least it kept a little water out of the cemetery where caskets are at risk of bobbing when the water rises (a casket was stranded on church property after Hurricane Katrina).

I am in New Orleans, thankfully, where every drop of water that falls inside the levee system is channeled to giant pumps that spew it into the lake. I watched a flooded street once turn into a river running toward the drains, and then two creeks on either side of the street’s crest, and then small streams. You could almost hear the giant sucking sound as every drop disappeared into the storm sewers. It took all of 15 minutes to go from an eight-inch-deep lake to moist asphalt curb to curb.

The water was waist-deep in the baptistery Sunday as I baptized a Jordanian man who placed his faith in Christ as a teenager but waited to be baptized until both his father and mother trusted Christ as well.

Salem grew up in the desert where 18 inches of rain falls over a two-year period. John the Baptist walked into the Jordan River to baptize because half of the fresh water in that part of the world is in that one, not-too-wide, river. Galilee is the water pipeline for the rest of Israel.

I have stood in ancient baptismal pools along the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. The rabbis devised complex systems for capturing rain water and transporting water from nearby wells and streams.

Herod the Great actually built swimming pools at the impregnable mountain fortress of Masada. The water to fill these large pools was carried by slaves and beasts of burden up the precipitous cliffs along hazardous trails. The radical Hebrew sect that later occupied Masada had sufficient water in hand for a thousand people to endure a two-year siege by the Romans.

Baptists immerse new followers of Jesus in pools of water just as John the Baptist did. God’s abundant supply of all good things is strikingly illustrated in this powerful ritual that began in such a parched part of the world.

My father laments that Central Texas always needs rain. The further west, the more pronounced the need.

My yard in New Orleans is green today, and the roses and hibiscus are blooming. Soggy days are now and always have been God’s promise of blossoms and buds to follow.

Commercializing Christmas

My brothers and I were some of the original people to commercialize Christmas. Dad was trying to make ends meet one year, and he decided to sell Christmas candy in the suburbs of El Paso. I was about twelve, I think, and Tim was fourteen, Tom was eleven, Danny was nine, and Jon was almost eight. Our younger siblings waited in the station wagon.

I remember those colorful tin cans we carried from house to house. They had pictures on the outside of the candy on the inside. It was the hard candy that is good to suck but terrible to chew - sticks in your teeth and you have to rub it out with your tongue! I never could resist chewing that candy. It just melted too slow for me.

We thought we were on silver stocking lane in that subdivision. Looking back, I realize it was just an average middle class neighborhood, but I didn't have any idea about socioeconomic classes back then. I figured everybody wore hand me downs and took their lunches to school in grocery sacks.

The people in those houses were very nice to us. I suppose I would have been the same way, it being Christmas and us being young boys trying to make some money for a "needy family." That's what we told them if they asked we were raising money for a needy family. I think some of them guessed that the needy family was us!
So that's how we did our part to commercialize Christmas when I was a boy. I didn't know then that we could count the shopping days until Christmas. It would have helped us sell more candy. It's hard to communicate a sense of urgency about buying candy unless you have some kind of deadline to do it in.

Have a great holiday season, and don't let the pressure get to you. Remember that the time you spend together as a family is more important than what's in the boxes. Have your family in church for the Christmas concerts and the Christmas Eve Service. Sing the songs loudly enough so you can hear each other. Think about the words: "Silent night, holy night, all is calm."

THE EFFECT OF CARING

Caring for another human being has an effect. The effect is felt both by the giver and the recipient of the care.

Caring is an experience. It originates in heart and soul. It occurs in time and space. It affects and connects giver and recipient—I and thou discovered in the moment of caring.

Caring has power—amazing power. It is healing and transformational. No one in the matrix of care remains unchanged. Caring carries us from the inertia of self-absorption into the energy of dynamic relation.

The greatest feeling in the world is not created by illegal drugs. It is experienced through the power of caring.

You have not lived until you have cared for another person with no thought of a return favor. Literally, this statement is true. Life itself unfolds and multiplies only in the process of giving.

Acts of compassion are generally seen as blessings bestowed upon those in need. And they are.

However, Jesus taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). If we describe the blessing of giving accurately, we will first address the greatest blessing—that bestowed upon the giver. This is the primary and most predictable effect of care.

Caring for a person in need is liberty. It is liberation from the black hole of selfishness. Caring for another person wrenches my mind from the prison of self, from the trap of regrets and doubts, into the mysterious and exhilarating journey of concerned relationship.

Caring for a person in need is therapy. The most common sicknesses in the human heart are guilt, sorrow, anger, and shame. They are products of a fixation upon what used to be or could have been or should have been. This orientation backward robs the present of its potential and frustrates the universal longing for meaningful relationships now. The sick of heart are best advised to become care-givers. Meeting the needs of another person is the best way to your own healing.

Caring for a person in need is hilarity. The Apostle Paul wrote, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). The Greek word translated “cheerful” is hilaros from which we get the English word hilarious. God loves a hilarious giver—a cheerful, joyful, happy giver.

You will be happier and more satisfied with life. Your family will enjoy better emotional and spiritual health. Your church will experience a new unity and greater sense of purpose and mission. The community around you will acknowledge your caring ways, and a new reputation of love and concern will emerge.

Like eagles that mount the lofty heights, people who express their love through practical deeds of kindness soar above and beyond the doldrums of life. Jesus came to give us abundant life. He modeled this abundance in his own giving ways. And he challenged his followers to imitate the servant spirit exemplified in washing the feet of others. Foot-washing, along with his crucifixion, was his premier example of an abundant life lived according to God’s will.