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Sermon Index

WELCOME HOME, HON

by the Reverend John Parker Manwell
and the Reverend Phyllis L. Hubbell
at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore
on the 8th of September 2002
Homecoming Sunday

Rev. Hubbell : A "well traveled" journalist recently wrote a homesick letter to Dan Rodricks of the Baltimore Sun. The journalist remembered his own constant complaints about Baltimore when he lived here. When he had a chance to leave, he took it. Now, he wrote to Rodricks,

More than two years have passed, and I have to tell you that all the other cities I have visited and lived in cannot compare with my hometown. My travels have taken me to San Diego, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Ontario, Boston, Columbus, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Lexington. None of these cities can compare to Baltimore. . . . Theres a certain vitality that cant be equaledthe accents of the people, the down-to earth nature of many of the waitresses and other folks you come in contact with. Hon still exists.

Every year now for the last 6 years, we have vacationed in Maine. We love Maine. We could bring back a gallon of water, so many are the places in Maine that restore our souls. Maines front porch is the ocean. Lakes and ponds are scattered with a free hand throughout the rest of the state for those who prefer quieter beauty. Lobster is sold everywhere. Even McDonalds sells lobster rolls. Part of me resists leaving.

But part of me knows when August comes that it is time to return home. Home to Baltimore, Bal-Bal-Bal-Baltimore, the city that we adore. When I reflect on it, I could bring a gallon of water from Baltimore, too. I would start with water to represent our front porch, a traditional Baltimore row house. Each winter, we yearn for the time we can eat outside again. I would add to it water from our neighbors' porches to remind me of the generosity that touches me throughout the year. I would add some drops from Fraziers, and Mamies and the Golden Café in Hampden, whose interiors are so obviously furnished by people just like you and me rather than by designers who use the same furnishings in franchises throughout the country. I would add a cup from the Inner Harbor, where Ive witnessed many sunsets from a water taxi. I would fill my gallon to the brim, surely, from this very sanctuary, within whose walls I worship along with you. This grand building and its magnificent heritage have found a place in my heart. Among you I find hope.

We are newcomers to Baltimore. Weve been here a mere 8 years. But in that 8 years we have grown to love this city. I have lived many placesChicago, Washington, DC, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Ontariobut I cant think of another city that has so much character, so much soul. Almost every week, we go to the Waverly Market. Eggplant; bottled milk; orange, yellow, pink and red tomatoes; collard greens; herbs; sunflowers; day-old roses; cantaloupes; honeydew; watermelon; peaches; apples; mushrooms frying on a grill; sundried tomato bread; scallops; foccaccio; and cranberry scones. It is a paradise of color and smell. People shop with their dogs, they come on foot and by caryoung people, old people, babies hardly born. People hand out political flyers, the Watchtower, or petitions to save some part of the city. There are people of every color, voices that speak in many accents. There are rich and poor. We feel nourished even before we eat what we have bought. It is the way the world should be, everywhere. All of us together, plenty of food, plenty of opinions, at peace with one another and the world

Rev. Manwell: One of the things that we like about Baltimore is that so many people we meet are from Baltimore. Were born here. Maybe their parents, too, were born here and their parents before them, often in the same neighborhoods if not the same houses. It feels like a place with roots that go way down.

But even as we say that, I remember going on a walking tour of an east Baltimore neighborhood near Patterson Park last week with member Jan Schutzman. The further away we got from Patterson Park, the more boarded-up houses we saw, the more trash in the alleys. We missed the drug dealers that day, but Jan says they are usually a menacing presence for the 10-year-old boys we saw playing in a grassy church built playground. Murder rates are creeping back up this year, and jobs continue to be scarce.

The situation isnt all bad. Our emergency rooms are seeing fewer people for heroin abuse. People stop on the street to chat with Jan, who knows them from an after-school program, and Jan is one of many people trying to bring help and hope to neighborhoods in need. In the neighborhood we visited, people still chat on the steps, and neighborliness is alive, maybe more than I will ever know. A local Lutheran church has fenced in a grassy area where children can play, and are working to transfer its ownership to the neighborhood. Theyve planted a community garden, even laid out an outdoor labyrinth to help people experience the holy.

Kent Nerburn, in his book Road Angels, describes his own journey in a different part of the country. He has a family nowa wife and a son still at home in rural northern Minnesota, a land that is beautiful but harsh. Nerburn returns to the West Coast, where he spent his college years, thinking that, perhaps, here is a land more conducive to the human spirit, a land where the year-round warmth and spectacular beauty whisper to children that they can be anything they want to be, do anything they want to do. Perhaps this is the place to raise his son rather than at home, where most men have shotguns in their trucks and children grown hard too young may taunt a sensitive boy.

But as Nerburn traverses the miles of fast-food outlets, as he speaks to the ego-driven individualists, he remembers the dark side of the Coast. Renewal there may be found in the sunsets and the surf pounding against the beach. But are there not dangers waiting for his son in California as well, in the culture of anything-for-a-buck that nestles comfortably next to an inconstancy of values and style="COLOR: red">ultimacy IS THIS THE CORRECT WORD?; where each week finds a new hot diet, herb, or guru that will solve all our problems?

A pivotal moment comes for Nerburn when he revisits a street in Oakland where he used to play pickup basketball. A game is going on, but now there is threat in the air. The young men playing are suspicious, hostile, possibly armed. He is white, older. He doesnt belong here. Maybe he is a narc. Maybe a cop. They glare at him and utter to one another curses obviously meant for him.

Nerburn backs off a bit. He doesnt feel safe turning and walking back to his car. He ambles over to a bench where an African American man about his own age is watching. The man waves at the seat next to him. Nerburn sits. They start talking. The two talk about how times have changed. The other man says how crack is killing the youth. They reminisce about the Black Panthers. The other man remembers that they used to give the neighborhood some hope, encourage them to do something for the community, "started schools, day care, helped the old folks." Now, he says, the "kids aint nothing but petty criminals." They have no dreams, "[s]o they kill their own black brothers and Whitey looks on. Theyre killing for nothing. Dying for nothing."

Nerburn asks whether he has ever thought about leaving.

I aint going nowhere, he says. Somebodys got to care about these kids. Somebodys got to be stand-up and show them some kind of way.

Im stunned. I assumed there was a kind of vagrancy and dereliction behind his presence. Is that why you sit out here? I ask.

Thats why. Every day. He points to a brace on his right foot. I hadnt noticed it. Hed kept his foot under the bench. I had my time and I did my thing. Now I got my little pension. These kids, mostly aint got no dads. Every once in a while one of them comes over. We talk a bit. Maybe I can set him just a little bit straight.

Nerburn writes that he felt shocked and humbled. He had thought that moving might be the answer to his own stagnation as well as to the difficulties his son faced. Maybe if he found richer soil, gentler weather, he would be happier. Maybe then, his son would have a better chance. Now he saw clearly that just as every place has gifts to offer, every place has snares. "At some point youve got to pick a spot and do what you can do." You find a place that sings to you, even though its hardships also hurt.

Rev. Hubbell: I love Baltimore. Its marble steps, crab cakes, even the outdoor movies projected on the side of a row house in Little Italy where everyone brings their own chairs to watch. I love it even though I havent seen it. But I hate the jails that hold so many men and women whose greatest flaw is hopelessness. I hate the boarded-up houses, the children drugged and dying before their time. I hate the schools that are relics of segregation with too few books and no playgrounds, no art or music, teachers who dont know how to reach and teach our children. Parents who have given up.

Most of us here today love Baltimore. Some of us work elsewhere but live here because we love it. Many more of us live in the surrounding counties, but come here to church because we still care about this great city, still care about the people. We want to make Baltimore work again, want to make it a city in which all of its people can sit on their front porches or marble steps, chatting with their neighborswhere neighbors keep an eye on all of our children. We want to bring hope and help to our all neighbors. We hope to find some hope and help ourselves.

It is here that we have chosen to put down our roots, or leave them. Even if we have moved away, we have left part of ourselves here. Yet a time comes when most of us learn the value of growing roots that go deep. The comfort of neighbors who know our nameif we are lucky, neighbors who knew our parents and remember us growing up. Who now sit on their porches and watch over our children and keep them from harm. For us newcomers, neighbors who bring us cake and cookies when we move in and watch our cats when were out of town. When trouble happens on our street, we gather together outside out of concern, not curiosity, always ready to help.

So many of us have lost that. I cant remember ever having that in another city Ive lived in. Maybe Chicago, but I was a child then. What can be more holy than shoveling snow from the walk of an elderly neighbor? Perhaps only having that elderly neighbor give our children cookies and milk. Building ties. Building community. Seeing God in our neighbors face. Loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Rev. Manwell: It starts with knowing each others' names. It continues by putting down roots. By coming home. By deciding to stay. By saying that here, in this city that needs so much, here in this city that offers so much, I will stay and do what I can do.

We in this church have committed to stay in the city. Many others have left. Some of us personally felt we needed to go. Yet we kept coming back to this church. We vowed that the church would remain.

This church is a symbol of hope. A symbol of our commitment to help with the rebuilding. A symbol that we believe in this city. We believe in its people. Our roots are deep. Our faith is strong. This is the place where we are planted. This is the place where we belong.

Welcome home, hon. Whether you have stayed here all summer or whether you wandered, welcome home. This is our home. Our glorious, golden city. Let us make her strong.