Christmas Time In The City
It’s Christmas time in the city. I’ve always been fond of the lyrics to this classic Christmas tune. When I hear it I always have visions of a beautifully decorated cityscape with one of those horse drawn sleighs carrying some smiling people around for a ride in the snow. I’ve been reminded this season that Christmas time in the city is not always this way.
This Sunday some kind folks from my church, The Love of Christ Community Church in Memphis, will be putting on a Christmas party for some kids in a housing project in Memphis. We’re going to have our band play some great music, then share the Gospel and follow it up with dinner. After the meal we’ll break out the gifts that the TLC folks bought for the 45 children we adopted from the program. I think this party is going to be a blessing for the folks that receive the gifts but maybe even more for the people that give them. You see most of the people giving the gifts are from affluent neighborhoods on the east side of town. We hear about the residents of the poorest sections of the city but rarely have an opportunity to go there and meet them. I think it’s going to be a blessing because it’s going to be a perspective adjustment that may serve to make us much more thankful for what we have, and I’m not just speaking about material things.
I went to the Emmanuel Episcopal Center (where the party is going to be) yesterday to work out some of the last minute logistics and was there for about an hour. I left there a changed man. I’ve been to the center many times before but this was the week before Christmas and the place was very busy. Because it was so busy I spent much of my time waiting in the office of the director of the center as he fielded phone calls and spoke with visitors to his office. Colenzo Hubbard founded and runs the center. He is an Episcopal priest and one of the most Godly men I have ever met. I told him I wasn’t in a hurry and wanted him to help the folks that stopped by. Here’s just a little bit of what I saw in one hour there.
As I entered Colenzo’s office he was on the phone with someone who had no heat in their house because their gas had been turned off and it was going to be below freezing that night. Colenzo counseled the caller on what to speak with the utility company about and told him to call back to let him know how it went.
Then we talked about one of the residents of the neighborhood who was murdered the other day. A young man of 24 with three young children.
Another phone call to work out the details of next weeks’ food delivery to the elderly in the area. My wife and I used to deliver “meals on wheels” so I had a mental picture of this program - wrong. This was not “let’s deliver a special holiday meal” so they can have a better meal than usual. These meals were going to people that many days have no money to buy any food at all. Colenzo explained to me that some of these people take medicine that’s supposed to be taken with a meal but have no meal to take it with.
I’m still in Colenzo’s office and in walks a young lady who looks very upset. We’re introduced and I find out that this is the fiance of the young man that was murdered. I was stunned. I hear stories on the news regularly (sadly) in Memphis but here I was sitting in the room with one of those stories, this was a very different view. After Colenzo and this young lady spoke, Colenzo asked me to join with them in prayer and I listened to this woman sob.
These peoples’ Christmas and mine are very different. I told Colenzo that I was so amazed that he could continue to do this work year after year and he said it’s not hard if God calls you to it. This is a ministry that deals with people in crisis. There are no “normal” days in these people’s lives. Crisis is the norm.
The focus of the Emmanuel Center’s ministry is “Sharing the Love of Christ in Word and Deed”. The center aims to not just feed and clothe the poor but to break the cycle of poverty that has plagued many of these families for four generations. I believe that only God can affect that kind of change and you can watch Him do it at the Emmanuel Center. From the youngest children’s program to the adult ministry, God is the focus of the solution. Fortunately there are many success stories after 13 years of operating in that community.
Christmas time in the city. I’m worried about whether I have the right batteries for the gifts I bought for my kids. The folks in the other part of the city are worried about having heat. Do I cook ham or turkey for Christmas dinner? They may be looking for any meal at all.
I’m so thankful that God is God and I’m not. If I didn’t know him, who would have made sure that my perspective was adjusted correctly this Christmas season? But more importantly than that, what hope would the people in this housing project have? What a privilege it will be on Sunday to go and serve these folks with the hope that they will see just a glimpse of Jesus in us as we share the love of Christ by serving those less fortunate. I’m remembering that, dealt a different hand, I could have been (and still could be) one of the folks I’m going to serve.
It’s Christmas time in the city and the “haves” and the “have nots” all need Jesus. The miraculous birth of our Savior is the source of hope for both sides of town.
What your story reveals to me is I am a knot whereas Colenzo (for example) is a lifeline.
Hmmm, Mary’s example of “pondering these things in her heart” is fine advice right about now.
— Mike Dec 18, 06:48 AM #
— kati Dec 23, 03:20 PM #