We've all heard of the adventure of the Space Odyssey. Once again, I have been thinking quite a bit about something I will call an Urban Oddity. I think I always have been holding onto such a dream/vision - but have always stumbled along the way. Let me explain - even if offends or delights - the rant goes on.
The Urban part of this adventure for life has to do with moving in, with, and under a congregation that is situated in a major city. By its very placement, such a congregation is out-of-place within the mainstream of congregational life. For far too long, Urban was a place that people left - if not physically - at least mentally - and, I might add - spiritually. Urban includes a wide variety of people and yet the variety of people rarely are engaged with one another in a common worship space. Some folks stay within a 'family-owned congregation' in which a few folks hold onto a past when the life in the congregation and the neighborhood was as they wanted it. Others are drawn to the pillars of denominations - the monied - the wealthy - the influential - the historical. Usually programs here are numerous and diverse - endowments growing - some have well-known, well-supported, and well-intentioned social ministry projects - clergy are sought out for preaching skills or name recognition or denominational influence. There are also many smaller congregations that may be primarily African-American or European but have not been able to fit in as the communities change. They easily become drive-in congregations run by obligation to the past - family - historical presence. Some congregations are simply small shops set up here and there with only a handful of participants - storefronts or rental spaces suit them well. Still others are sign-sealed-delivered into the hands of a wide list of denominations who are too often afraid of closing shop yet let the elements of the day in those congregations lead them into congregational hospice - but it usually isn't with the beloved care hospice offers. Here and there, the Urban church is made up of corporate models that move in and work to be the show stopper - the mega-of-everything-available. They seem to work well and they capture the imagination of younger families and singles while still attracting those middle age folks who like the clean finish of things and the opportunity to support a growing project.
The Urban part of this adventure for life also knows about segregation of people. Some areas of the city are those through which many folks do not drive and will not visit. Some neighborhoods have become historical havens for GLBTQ folks that often are havens for liberals of all kind - yet primarily European. There are communities that have a long history of being somewhat mixed -racially. Folks who live there seem to count it mixed even when only a small percentage of those folks (you pick) have lived there for years. There are well-to-do communities made up of people who are committed to live in the city or have lived there for so long - they cannot afford to move. There are the old mansion areas that once claimed the wealthiest of the city - then were abandoned and left to decay - then resurrected for the benefit of a younger monied group who also are proud to claim the city as home. The segregation is also amplified when urban centers are converted into domains for the young professionals and empty-nesters who are now able to move into the city and into an area that delivers the kinds of goods that attract and please and make life secure. I also find large tracks of land that were once quite rural/suburban but were overrun by urban sprawl and have become enclaves often impossible to label.
The Urban part of this adventure for life includes spaces left unattended. Like the food deserts - the vast expanses of land in which all major food chains have left for more fruitful communities. These are the same areas that city official and well-meaning folks like to point to and say there is a growing urban garden movement going on there. And yet, no urban garden will feed the people like a well-stocked chain that brings in variety and quality. In addition, there are the neighborhoods overrun with landlords who have long given up on those neighborhoods and yet keep their properties just within the limit of acceptability - but barely. It is here that it can take years to get rid of ill attended houses and buildings that still benefit owners but devastate neighborhoods by the disease that infects such abandonment and neglect.
The Oddity part of this adventure for life takes me back go Corinth - in a way. A gathering of people who come from different ends of the economic spectrum and yet come together to be a part of one body. As we know so well from Paul's letters, it was no easy adventure. The rich will be rich and the poor will be poor - and for some strange reason the gathering together did not seem to bring the two together very well - thus the letter. Those-kind-of-people and those-other-kind-of-people just do not seem to want to be with each other. Both sides are considered odd - to the other. Only the one Lord - one Baptism - one Body seemed to be able to hold folks together for the time being. It is also the realization that we - though one - are too damn different to be willing to sit - eat - live - love - worship with one another. That is who we have become in the Church - just what we were when letters had to be written to help stop the nonsense. As we face this reality with open hearts and lives, we will appear odd - things will appear upside down.
The Oddity part of this adventure for life consists of the work necessary to be an urban congregation in which there is a place for me and you and them and those. Not just a place, but an expectation that we will not be able to be the image of God in the city unless the whole bunch of us make up the one presence by which we claim to live - the God who so loved the world. I will call this life together an act of conscientious objection. The urban church is one that needs to invite into our life together - all those who are objectionable to us. This will be - by its very meaning - an invitation to everyone. This will also mean that we are to risk taking on the life that we say offers promise - resurrection - peace - compassion - forgiveness - nonviolence - mercy - even as the life around us is already too familiar and too comfortable with just the antithesis of such a life. It will be odd - it always has been odd - maybe that is why this life - this adventure - rarely is seen among us.
I think many of us have seen glimpses of an Urban Oddity - a moment - a spoken word - an act of self-sacrifice that leads to new life - a unimaginable diversity at peace with itself. The word to myself today is that I must become odd and take advantage of the opportunity to walk in the New Jerusalem that is a promise - not for another time - but rather for all time.
TRRR
Next comes a vision for the theological foundation for such a odd and expansive people living within the fullness of promise as it unfolds as God's Reign even now.
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