#ATLT: a prayer for the pillar of truth, scott bennett

Welcome to #ATLT, At the Lord’s Table: A Conversation, a series of over 50 posts from varying authors about the beautiful, mangled Church. Look for at least two new posts every Monday through Saturday between January 25th and February 22nd. Join us in the conversation? See you in the comments.

5:58 pm.

I take my last breath of cool air in the cavernous lobby and lean into one of its gold revolving doors. They spin me round and spit me out into the city, transporting me from one world to another. I slide on my sunglasses and speed up to a run-walk pace through the downtown streets—5 blocks to the bus stop—in the hazy, humid 90-degree heat.

It’s my first time outdoors in 9 hours, and the air is barely breathable. After a few yards, I cock my head back and look up. The mile-long wall of high-rises on either side of me leaves only a narrow strip of sky visible above. Concrete and metal have crowded the heavens out.

I’m late for the 6:08 bus, as usual.

Every time my feet touch the concrete, they stick to the black dots of hot, softened chewing gum that stipple the sidewalk. A dried stain of urine ghosts the front of a building, which now pools across my path. I glide over it, holding my breath. A cocktail of stenches—garbage bins, body odor and stale beer—fills my nostrils and seeps into my now sticky wet clothes.

Up ahead, a dirty man with an empty stare sits silently huddled on a small stoop. He’s cradling a brown cardboard sign with Sharpie scribbles: VIETMAM VET PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS. I hurry my late self past him, just like the priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan. “Tomorrow,” I think to myself.

I look ahead. On one street corner, a banker in a shiny gray suit is reading someone the riot act into his Bluetooth headset. On the other corner, an African American girl, not a day over 18, holds a car seat with a newborn in one hand, and a fussy toddler’s hand with the other.

No one is smiling. No one is laughing. No one welcomes another. No one cares. Sadly, on this day, not even me.

6:00 pm.

The church clock tower a few blocks behind me on 6^th and Sycamore starts to play the Westminster Quarter. I count them in my head as they toll: one … two … three … four … five … six. I know what comes next.

After a brief silence, its bells start to flood the streets with a beautiful hymn that drowns out even the most deafening diesel:

Of the Father’s love begotten

Ere the worlds began to be,

He is Alpha and Omega,

He the Source, the Ending He,

Of the things that are, that have been,

And that future years shall see

Evermore and evermore.

Oh, that birth forever blessed


When the Virgin, full of grace,


By the Holy Ghost conceiving,


Bare the Savior of our race,


And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,


First revealed His sacred face


Evermore and evermore.

I sing what words I know, and light begins to flood my heart. I remember. Though I have never stepped foot in that downtown church, her message of hope has penetrated me in this place. She takes her stand in a twisted jungle of metal and madness—heralding wisdom to the fool, hope to the hopeless, and reminders to the forgetful.

Wisdom cries aloud in the street,

in the markets she raises her voice;

at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;

at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing

and fools hate knowledge?

If you turn at my reproof,

behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;

I will make my words known to you.

—Proverbs 1:20-23

She stands as a strong pillar of the truth, in a time when truth is so often suppressed, denied—and in my case, momentarily forgotten.

She reminds all within the sound of her voice that a loving Father has set the heavens in place, even when it seems this city has crowded them out.

She proclaims that her Groom is eternal and unfading, ruling over all that is temporal and fading. He is the Savior of our race, the World’s Redeemer, by Whose stripes no one need ever be beyond the hope of healing.

Yet, in all her beauty, the bell tower is but a shadow of the living stones that teem below—beautiful feet called to carry good news of grace to the ends of the alleys, and the earth. We are the church, truth on two legs.

O Great God, may we, Christ’s bride, walk in a manner worthy of this calling. And may all glory go to the One who gave Himself up for us.

Amen.

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read the post before this one, here.

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© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.