Proper 22, Year A
October 2, 2005
Christ Church, Covington
“I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its
wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste…” (Is. 5:5-6).
It’s the last Friday in August, and I have some time to kill in New Orleans
before picking up my son from school. I park near Tulane, on St Charles Avenue,
and walk through Audubon Park to Magazine Street. I like to walk, and especially
in this part of the city, where the sights and the people are constantly
changing. On Magazine Street I stop at a Starbuck’s for an iced coffee. The sun
is shining, of course, because there are no clouds and no afternoon rain. It is
extremely hot, “hurricane weather”, though I’m not thinking about that. Katrina,
for me, isn’t even a blip on the radar screen. I finish my drink and head over
to Saint Martin’s for the car pool line, pick up William, then hurtle down I-10
and over the Causeway, headed north. I don’t remember if I looked back.
Flash forward two days later, to Sunday night. Now, of course, Katrina is no
longer a storm in the Keys, but one headed directly to Louisiana. I drive to
church for the 6:00pm service. I am the only person there, thank God. I’ve told
the congregation that morning that they need to trust God and do what they need
to do, and so I’m delighted that folks have taken me up on this. I finish the
liturgy and head home on foot (I’m hedging my bets and leaving my car in the
church lot, maybe the only smart thing I did that day). Now it’s dark. Mostly
the neighborhood is quiet. I pass a house that is lit up like Christmas, with
music going and a few people outside. Is it my imagination or do I hear them
playing Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song, “I Feel Lucky”? “No tropical depression’s
gonna steal my sun away…”. I’m not sure I felt lucky that day. It was the calm
before the storm, a last glimpse of something that is now changed. But of
course, I didn’t know that then. Like the previous Friday, there was no backward
glance.
It’s a weekend of homecoming, so the backward glance omitted then is now
appropriate and warranted; a weekend of homecoming, in many ways and for many
people, though not for everybody. School starts on Monday for most students in
Saint Tammany and Jefferson Parishes. Some folks this weekend were even able to
return to their homes in Orleans Parish, to stay. It’s also the weekend that the
mayor and other worthies got down to start planning the rebuilding of the city
of New Orleans, a tremendous job that concerns everybody here. So, like every
homecoming, there’s a backward glance this weekend over the shoulder (“look at
what we’ve lost”), but also a look forward to what is ahead.
In our reading from the Prophet Isaiah, God lets the People of Israel look ahead
a bit. The news is not good for them. The city will be destroyed and be made a
waste; the walls will be broken down and the People will go into exile. Now we
know something more about this experience of God’s People than we did before. We
have that painful privilege.
But if the glimpse ahead for God’s People today is sobering, it’s not the whole
story. Part of what God promises the People through the Prophet is restoration
and return; homecoming, in fact. The end of the story is not about punishment
but about renewal. “They shall be called, ‘The Holy People, the Redeemed of the
Lord’; and you shall be called, ‘Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken’” (Is. 62:32).
God’s People are coming back to the city and to their place; the wastelands will
be cleared and God will create a new home for his People.
These promises are ours as well. God’s intention is to bring us home. You know
what that means for you. Folks who think the meaning of this storm is explained
by God’s intention to punish have got it exactly wrong; not because they’re
mean-spirited (maybe they are) but because the message of the Gospel and it’s
meaning is the going home afterward; the Resurrection that brings new life. It’s
a weekend to look back, but also to look forward, to the new life God is
bringing about. So let’s look ahead, and discern what God is doing.
John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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