Reflection on Urban Ministry and God's Plan of Redemption

Note: I wrote this entry in my personal journal on 1/25/10 while on a "solitude retreat" at a St. Andrews Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery nestled in the beautiful San Gabriel Mountains about 1 hour from LA. All five of us Dwellers/YAVs and Matthew spent the entire day in silent prayer and reflection. I didn't write it anticipating to share it on my blog. It started as a sort of stream-of-consciousness thing that eventually morphed into a deeper more theological reflection on my own identity and the purpose of urban ministry.

As I've been walking down the muddy dirt roads and trails today on the grounds of the monastery, I can't help but notice my shoes. Today I'm wearing my red and white adidas tennis shoes. Ironically (perhaps), they used to belong to one of our homeless clients at PATH who decided he didn't want them any more. However, I actually think of them as my "nice" or "cool" casual shoes. My housemates know it must be a "special occasion" or that I'm trying to impress somebody when I'm wearing these ones.

See, I was excited (sort of) to acquire these shoes because, without having to actually spend money, I finally had something to wear with jeans and a t-shirt to "go out" in that weren't old running shoes (what I normally wear) or my trusty blue flip-flops; nor were they my nice brown or black "dress shoes." As funny as it sounds to have so many types of different shoes for different occasions, that kind of thing matters to people in our culture -- ESPECIALLY in a place like Hollywood. But if these shoes hadn't been randomly given to me, I would have been perfectly content to continue wearing old running shoes and flip-flops everywhere.

"So isn't it funny" I kept thinking to myself today, "that when I'm in the city I usually am content to wear my very outdoorsy old running shoes that have zero fashion appeal without even giving it much thought, in spite of the fashion-conscious culture and the good-natured jokes I have to endure from some of my housemates. But now that I'm all alone in solitude -- in the great outdoors -- I'm wearing shoes that actually look decent enough to pass all of LA's fashion laws; and now I'm getting them all muddy."

For this reason, I have been wondering for the past year or so if maybe I'm much more of a "country boy" than a "city guy" after all. I've always lived in cities and considered cities a more appealing place to live long-term than rural/scenic country areas. But now I take and enjoy every chance I can to escape the busy-ness of LA in favor of green spaces like Griffith Park (or St. Andrew's Abbey). And recently, I've been thinking I would really love to live long-term in such a scenic, rural, outdoorsy place like St. Andrew's. Or Montreat. Or Ghost Ranch. Why do I keep insisting I'm called to urban ministry and that I'd rather live in a huge city than in the middle of nowhere? After all, it's not like I'm huge into typical young adult city life, like going out to bars, nightclubs, concerts etc. Shouldn't I stop kidding myself?

The answer, of course, has everything to do with being counter-cultural. There's nothing really all that edifying, from my perspective, about those entertainment options above that the city offers. They take up time and money, and even though I hate to use the word or sound judgmental, they can become something like a vice for some people.

The fact that "vices" exist in the city is one of the reasons urban ministry is important in the first place. I don't mind "going out" to sporting events, bars, nightclubs and concerts -- I actually have a great time when I do, but it usually takes someone else to do the organizing, because I'm not someone who has the urge to go out too often. I think this fact is a gift. That I can live in LA -- Hollywood, in fact -- for a year and not feel like I "wasted opportunities" by staying in rather than going out most weekends. Rather, I really want to be able to dedicate myself as fully possible to serving the homeless population I work with, being present as a good neighbor and mentor in the neighborhood, living in intentional community with my housemates and involving myself in Silverlake Community Church. Then hopefully I can use whatever brief or rare moments of down/leisure time to rest, reflect and recharge rather than go out. Having this attitude, I think, really helps me confirm that I am called to do urban ministry.

The Bible begins in Genesis with an account of the goodness and perfection of God's creation. For a short time, Adam and Eve lived in harmony with creation in a garden. But then we screwed up and were banished from paradise. The imagery of the garden appears in stark contrast to the height of humanity's fall from grace a few chapters later -- the story of the tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper. The moral of the story of the tower of Babel is that we humans in our fallen state were punished because we tried to put ourselves on the same level as God. We constructed something that edified ourselves and asserted our own dominance and power. The tower epitomizes humanity's attempt to rely on our own strength and ingenuity to "save" ourselves, when only God has the power to do that.

A sociological/economic perspective on human history mirrors the theological one. Civilization has always advanced via technology and ingenuity in order to improve humanity's position. Fending for ourselves, human beings have always wanted to do more than just "get by. We want the next generation to have life better than the previous one. The evolution of civilization to live in cities came as a result of the division of labor, which has made life and work more efficient. So things improve from our perspective, but we don't actually draw any closer to God. In fact, as technology makes our lives easier, we feel more and more like we don't need to rely on anyone else but ourselves, not God nor each other. On top of that, the increasing stratification of wealth allows us to build bigger and bigger walls between each other, even as we live in closer and closer proximity. And as we "advance," our society has become much more individualized, and technology allows us to interact with each other without having any real, meaningful, human contact.

LA is the epitome of wealth stratification; individual celebrities with super-sized egos (and bank accounts that are even larger) are worshipped as if they were Gods (and sometimes it seems like they believe they really are). And the existence of so many different languages (another aspect of the Babel story) leads to misunderstandings, prejudice and hatred. Living like this, it is sometimes all we can do not just to say to hell with it all and pray for the day that God wipes away all of the wickedness of our world like God did with Sodom and Gomorra.

But our God is a God of redemption, not of destruction. The finalization of God's plan as described in revelation is NOT a return to Eden, but a vision of a new Jerusalem. The new tree of life is situated by the river of life in the middle of a city, not a garden.

As urban ministers, we are to be signs that the work of God's redemption has already begun. The Kingdom has not arrived yet, but at the same time is already here. The great goodness of our life on this earth is that God chooses us to be instruments of his plan for redemption. By not succumbing to coldness and prejudice that's so prevalent in the city. By committing random acts of kindness for complete strangers. By standing up for the oppressed. By touching the untouchables. And by loving one's neighbor as oneself.