Holy Saturday in the City

I was catching up on reading some blogs I enjoy but hadn't been able to get to in the last few busy weeks - and I came across something on John Hay's blog a week ago on William Stringfellow and his reflections on ministry and the city. The passage Hay quotes was written back in 1963 by Stringfellow.

William Stringfellow was not a theologian, by profession, he was a lawyer. He was a Christian by calling. After graduating from Harvard Law School he moved into Harlem to begin to practice law. There he was a keen observer of both social life and the church and its practice of Christian faith in the life of the nation.

Back in the early 1980's I was fortunate to have spent some time with Mr. Stringfellow. My father had first introduced me to his writing about the time I was heading to seminary in reading "An Ethic for Christians and other Aliens in a Strange Land." I was struck by the clarity with which he saw his life in this world and the role of the church. I persuaded one of my professors who was a fan of his to allow me to call him to set up a dinner in New York City for the two of them -- if I could come along. And that's what happened. Later I would give Mr. Stringfellow a ride to the seminary to address our chapel service and then have conversation with the students and faculty. I was glad I took the time to do that -- he died a short time later. But I find myself often going back to his writing and quoting him in a variety of different situations.

This week I met with a pastor of a suburban congregation in our city. Among other things he talked with me about a debate he had "presided" over at a conference, between Adam Hamilton and Leonard Sweet. It seems that Adam Hamilton was arguing that, as pastor, he tried to speak to the middle. Leonard Sweet to umbrage at this and suggested that there was, in fact, no such thing as "the middle." The pastor I was speaking with seemed energized and interested in this debate and where he fit into it. The thing I realized is that I had little interest in the debate - it doesn't seem to concern me at all. It isn't where I live. I don't think that most people care whether I speak to the middle, or even whether I believe there is a middle or not. I think the question really is - what happening in God's presence in the world around me and how can I share that as clearly as I can with others? I think about the people I know in our congregation who are grieving. Do they care where the middle is? I think of the family of the women and girls who have died in fires in this neighborhood over the last two years. Do they care where the middle is? I think of the people here and around the world - who struggle every day for a little dignity and a roof over their head -- Do they care where the middle is?

Stringfellow wrote these words:

"Little can be said about the present estate of the churches in the city which does not sound as if the churches are ridiculous. Some churches, for example, have physically quit the city- closed down, sold out, and moved to the suburbs, only to find out that the problem of the mission of the church to the city still plagues them. For suburbs are satellites of the city and commuters spend much, if not most, of their time in the city. Perhaps the churches which have remained physically in the city have eluded the church's mission to the city more effectively-by virtually full-time preoccupation in ecclesiastical housekeeping, in massive indifference to the excitement and conflict of the city, or by plain malingering."

"Some churches have fled the city, but the churches that have remained, for the most part, have been hiding out."

"Consequently, of course, the city pays little attention to the churches, save for some patently absurd or innocuous event in which the churches manage to call attention to themselves. Recently, a clergyman convened a press conference in New York to announce the discontinuance of pew rentals. If that is all that the churches have to report to the city, it is probably shrewder to suppress the news. But that is just the sort of thing by which the churches are normally, albeit not yet exclusively, identified in the city."

"The notorious fact about the churches and the city at the present time is that the churches do not know the city. And yet the rudiment of the mission to the city is the immersion of the churches in the common life of the city and the dispersion of Christians within the turmoil and travail of the city's existence. The rudiment of mission is knowledge of the city because the truth and grace of the Incarnation encompass in God's care all that is the city. Mission for the church, and hence for the churches and for Christians, in the city means a radical intimacy with every corner and every echelon of the city's actual life in order to represent and honor God's concern for each fragment of the city."

The debate between Hamilton and Sweet is not a debate I really care to enter. It's not a meaningless one. It just needs to be lower on the priority. At a church conference it would seem to me that there would be a lot more important things to talk about -- and that there is not -- is perhaps the biggest of the problems we have.