(Re)Building Our Cities and Our Lives Together

It was both stunning and memorable.  Over a several-week period, the wall sculpture was built, piece by piece.  It was modern but the images were recognizable. Each week, a few more pieces were added.  When completed, the sculpture covered the entire front wall of the chapel.

In the early 1980s, I served as a chaplain at the Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh.  The liturgical arts program was funded by a generous benefactor. Built on the premise that art and music were healing and that the hospital’s mission was to care for the whole person, the chapel regularly hosted artistic displays, concerts, and recitals.  These events were broadcast to patient’s rooms through a closed-circuit TV station as part of spiritual care.

The sculpture reflected a theme: building the city of God.  Over the time during which the sculpture was built and while it was displayed in the chapel, at each service, a song was sung. The call was an invitation for people of faith to build the city of God.  We prayed to be empowered to build the city of God.  The sculpture of the city to be built was brightly colored with glitter and reflective surfaces.  The image depicted in the sculpture was the city of Pittsburgh with the three rivers and the downtown skyline.

The sculpture was meant to draw people to consider an essential element of the teaching of Jesus: that the realm of God is among us.  It is our call, our challenge, and our mission to make the realm of God tangible on earth in our daily lives and interactions with others.  “Some overly pious folks perceived the sculpture as blasphemous, contending that the city of God is a heavenly place. But the sculpture challenged us to consider a deeper theological reality.  The teachings of Jesus in the gospels speak of God’s realm as being within us and among us here and now.  God’s presence is in our cities, towns, and communities.  However, it’s a presence we rarely honor or revere.

Major cities are in serious trouble.  Houston just emerged from another disaster, this time from hurricanes that left residents without electricity for days.  In Atlanta, a series of water main breaks disrupted day-to-day life while it closed many businesses.  Then there are cities like New Orleans and St. Louis which consistently have the highest murder rates in the US. In my lifetime, the United States has gone from being the land of opportunity to a nation with failing infrastructure, entrenched poverty and homelessness, and widening gaps in opportunity for the future.  It’s been a very swift decline.

But the way out?  As a person of faith, I believe that change first begins with each of us.  We are challenged to open ourselves to being more mindful of and compassionate toward others.  In other words, I believe that an essential change must occur in terms of how people perceive and interact with each other.  As a nation, we have devolved so far that we cannot recognize the humanity of those who simply hold opinions and views different from our own.  We have no respect for each other as citizens but see each other as enemies.  For decades, our children have not been safe in our schools and citizens are not safe on the street.  Too often, law enforcement has been used as a weapon of harassment, including the times when insecure white people dial 9-1-1 to report Black and Brown people who are doing nothing more than living their lives as well as political extremists who “SWAT” those with whom they disagree.  Such behavior is diabolical.

When our theologies cause us to understand salvation as only about the afterlife and the realm of God as only being somewhere in a great beyond, then the world can go to hell and other people can be treated with contempt.  But the teachings of Jesus call us to a different standard:  the realm of God is within you and within me.  Salvation is about living in new ways here and now.  Each person, no matter their race, nationality, gender, orientation, or political view, is deserving of respect and fair treatment.  And Jesus went further: he taught that it is the weakest and most vulnerable in society who are the most valuable.

Can we build the city of God? Will we dedicate ourselves to doing what we can to treat others with justice and fairness?  Are we willing to put our political ideologies aside and make sure that those most vulnerable in the world can live with dignity?  To embrace the teachings of Jesus requires more than reforming social programs and laws.  Embracing the teachings of Jesus requires that we live in entirely new ways.

Yes, the city of God must be built, here, now, by you and me!

photo credit:  Markus Spiske on pexels.com