"It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times." So wrote Charles
Dickens in 1859, thereby beginning his classic work A Tale of Two Cities.
Many of us know that Dickens was observing two Londons, two societies,
and two kinds of culture; many also know that when Dickens said "It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times," he was existentially
experiencing it.
Charles Dickens grew up in a family of humble, middle class origins, but his father was obsessed with wealth and prestige. So his father lived extravagantly, saddling the family with great financial burden and overwhelming debt. When young Charles was twelve years old, he was sitting at his desk in school, when the authorities came and dragged him out. They took him by the shoulders and brought him to work in the sweatshop conditions of the factory, because his father had been put in debtor's prison. So Charles Dickens knew what it meant to have abundance, and he knew what it meant to have nothing; he knew these things in the very marrow of his bones. Dickens experienced both the best and the worst of times, in his own lifetime. He teaches us that the best and the worst often exist side by side.
Two
New York Cities exist side by side. There¹s the New York City of
luxury consumption, the city of the limousine down Park Avenue and orchestra
seats, the city of the tuxedo, Saks Fifth Avenue, Harry Winston and Cartier
Jewels. New York City, the place where you spend five hundred or well
over one thousand dollars on a hotel room for one night! A city where
you can spend a couple of hundred dollars for a bottle of wine at dinner.
Then there's the city of the back alleys, the city behind the shadows.
Instead of fur coats and the opera, it's crack and coke and alcohol and
AIDS. The two faces of this city coexist, side by side, all the wealth
and the joy of the best of times alongside thirty-three thousand homeless
people in this city.
The question that
God wants us to raise is this: How do we as concerned Christians —
people who have said yes to Jesus Christ — remain faithful to God
in this kind of world? What is our task in this kind of world? Shall we
simply lament and grumble that all hope is lost? Are we simply victims
of life's circumstances, or do we have another mission — a mission
to be an
ambassador for Christ? Is our mission to model the "new city"
amid the earthly city.
This is a mission that requires transformation, requires us to become a living illustration of what it means to be a citizen of God's Kingdom, not of the world's, right here in the midst of New York City. For New York City is where God has planted us. Interestingly enough, this is the very picture that the Apostle John paints for us in the New Testament book of Revelation.
There are two cities,
and one is described for us in Revelation 18. This is the earthly city,
with its chaos and decay, its meaningless chase after tin gods —
gods of success, money, wealth and power, and yes even sex — we've
ambitiously pursued that in the earthly city. But John tells us that God
doesn't abandon us in despair on a street corner in that doomed earthly
city. In Revelation 21 and 22 he speaks with promise of a new city, a
New Jerusalem. The choir was singing of it this morning, "Oh Zion
Haste, Thy mission high fulfilling. . .".
We are ambassadors of this "new Jerusalem", in the midst of
the earthly city. When people observe us, God intends that they glimpse
the way life was meant to be lived. God intends for people to see in our
lifestyle a glimpse of a kingdom where we don't think in terms of rich
or poor, or who's higher on the status ladder. God intends that when people
see Christians living our lives, they will glimpse a realm where all people
— men and women, rich and poor, regardless of background — come
together on one plane of life. This is a realm that crumbles the status
ladder into bits, and reestablishes our common humanity. We are to model
the world that Jesus Christ died to make a reality. We are to be a living
illustration of "the New Jerusalem".
Transformed people walk on a two-legged gospel of evangelism (commitment to Jesus Christ as the Lord of their lives), and spreading merciful social justice out into the world. Transformed people inhale God's love through Bible study, worship and prayer so that they can exhale God's love to a world in need. Transformed people don't think of their ministry as something that only happens in the church building. Transformed people say, "We go to the street to accomplish the ministry of the church! The world at large is where we perform our church work! We do the ministry of Christ on Wall Street. We do the ministry of Christ on Madison Avenue. We do the ministry of Christ in the hospitals and the nursing homes and the prisons.
Wherever
you and I are is our arena for serving as transformed people who are the
ministers of Christ out in that world. Transformed people aren't into
a quick fix, expecting to snap their fingers and have every problem disappear.
Transformed people don't just send a little money to the poor to appease
their consciences. Transformed people know it's a long obedience in the
same direction. Transformed people realize that the rich need God as much
as the poor need God. Transformed people realize there's not one right
way to serve, but a myriad of ways to utilize our gifts, all to the glory
of God. Transformed people are willing to take a risky step of faith.
It's a risky step, ministering in the city, but God is looking for people like you and me — transformed people who are willing to take the plunge. Let me explain why I¹d like us to get out into the world: to see it, to experience it, to touch it, and to know it. Because I believe that when we get out there, we will start to feel the city's pain. We¹ll start to listen to the heart of the city. Do you know that the city is speaking; crying? Are we listening?
