Chicago at Night by Audrey Krumbach
(Excerpt from sermon offered by Intern Rachel during 9/14 worship)
My favorite thing about the city of Chicago is the skyscrapers. These steel ladies seem to be reaching up to heaven. These women stand tall, blocking out the sun, the wind, and world from view. Those marvelous buildings elicit awe in my soul as I walk between them or look up the side of them leaning back so far that I almost tip over struggling to see the top. A whole new world was created as cities grew up and not out; because of them so much more was able to fit into the same amount of space. Inside each building is a whole new city of sorts, made up of food courts, offices, and gyms. As a child whenever I drove home from a road trip and caught the first sight of the skyscrapers peaking over the horizon, then at that moment, I knew I was almost home. I would allow myself to imagine my own bed, and the good night sleep that was about to come. As a teenager I spend many afternoons wandering with friends among these buildings after school, because nestled between them in the downtown was my high school.
Three large buildings, with entirely glass exteriors and large open organic spaces resembling a warehouse, was my high school. I was contained in a large cafeteria made of glass chatting with friends waiting for the first period of my class day to begin, when a security guard rushed into the room. He was an older white man, chubby and not typically known to rush anywhere. He headed directly to the TV screens, small devices located at the north and south walls of the cafeteria. He then began to yell for our attention. Slowly the chattering stopped, but there were grumbles of what could be so important. He wanted us to watch the TV; that is when we saw the instant replay of New York city and a plane hitting the twin towers. An airplane directly hit one of those beautiful skyscraper ladies, a sister to the ladies standing around our glass buildings.
Read Joshua 20:1-9
At church that Sunday following “9/11” we gathered with a mix of joy and solemn fear. Joy because our Pakistani congregation was bringing new people into membership. There was decorations and catered dinner for the service. It is hard not to be joyful with the smell of curry, chicken masala, and biryani; and the bright colors of the women’s saris and a gathering of all the church family. As people parked their cars and began to mill into the church, an Asian American church in a White neighborhood, cars passing by slowed, and eyes watched our gathering with suspicion and wonder. It was if all the building on the street had eyes glued on us. Suddenly a racial slur came from someone walking by accompanied with those disdainful, distrusting eyes.
We sang hymns of praise, and prayed to God for the joy of new members, immigrants from Pakistan,while each silence in our hearts echoed the racial slur, and flashed pictures of blood.
In the days that followed, incidents of hate crimes, and anger and mistrust directed at persons perceived to be Middle Eastern or Arab would grow. This filled the streets of our city with the heat of blood, tears and fear to leave one’s home. Our skyscrapers remained intact, continuing to reach for the sky, standing tall with pride, and preserved by no fly zones.
Read Joshua 20:1-9
In September 2001 in Sacramento California in if you wondered into a special Muslim School you would have found the windows decorated with thousand paper cranes. A Thousand pieces of paper, of different colors, varied designs, each a sign of hope and solidarity. The Japanese American community sent those cranes with a note about Pearl Harbor, their internment experience. Anger and fear built desert cities out of fair grounds and horse tracks for the Japanese Americans to inhabit as the country thought and suspected them of aiding the Japanese country who had bombed U.S. ships. The Japanese people in Sacramento responded to their memory not with hate, but with building a thousand paper cranes, a thousand prayers, a thousand signs of peace for the world.
Spaces of peace continue to be built by other actions of solidarity. This past Sunday people gathered from synagogues, churches, mosques, or of no faith home at all, to join the 9/11 Unity walk. This motley group of people engaged in services of remembrance and interfaith education. As people cooperate we build new cities and new spaces for each other to enter into; we live in a new way. I can see the floors of the new skyscraper going up. The building started the day the Japanese people sent the Muslin school thousand cranes, and it continues with events like the 9/11 unity walk in DC.
The tallest building in Chicago for a number of years during the last century was the United Methodist Chicago temple, with a chapel in the sky. High above the city a place of worship brings people hope and rest. Imagine looking out the windows of that chapel onto the city streets below, being so close to the sky you can touch it. What a new view of the city, what a new perspective on the world you gain in that moment. Imagine. What new city will you see, what will you try to build?
Imagine communion in that chapel, and Jesus there to offer it? What do you feel as you know all are welcome at the table? What if in line next to you was a murderer? What if it was someone that had harmed you? Can you still partake of the feast?
Atop this building we build a new city with new people, with Jesus who stands before us as a city of refuge. Jesus: one who died for us, one who came to teach us, who forgives us, and waits for us, and watches over us. Christ is our city of refuge sent by God. As the light shines in on us we can feel newness of life already being built. The building and cities of our making will never be as great as what God is building or has built in our hearts.
Written by Rachel Birkhahn-Rommelfanger, Assistant Campus Minister.
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