Cities Sitting on Mountain tops

Introduction

The Italian countryside

I am a little prejudiced in favor of Italians and Italy. One of the poets sings, “Italy, oh Italy, open my heart and you will see written therein `Sweet Italy.’” I love their language whose every word has to end in a vowel or there’s something wrong. I love the cuisine with its many shapes of pasta, its infinite variety of the wines. I love the liquid gold of olive oil poured over everything. I love the Italians themselves talking passionately about something not very earth shattering. I love their baci and bracci, their hugs and kisses.

I love the countryside, with its rolling hills and steep mountains, with olive trees and vineyards climbing up their slopes. I love ancient cemeteries dotting up the landscape. Oh their cemeteries! You can spot them from miles away, marked as they are by herds of tall Italian cypresses grazing on some hill. Like huge fingers those slim towering trees point upward to God in whose bosom the dead sleep. Those clusters of Cypresses whisper constantly to the nearby village saying, “Sono qui, sotto i Cipressi,” “They’re here under the Cypresses.” And if you’re driving by at dusk, the cemeteries are all softly aglow with thousands of tiny electric vigil lights. It’s impressive indeed.

I also love the countless towns and cities nested upon the lofty heights of hills and mountains. And when you travel past them at dusk, they too are all aglow with city lights. They too are impressive. Whenever I read the words of the gospel, “You are a city built upon a mountain which cannot be hidden” that’s the imagery that comes rushing to mind. Even President Reagan liked the image. In a speech he once said, “Why this country is a shining city built upon a hill.” And Italian Mario Cuomo, former Governor of New York, quoted Reagan’s imagery in his famous keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, in 1984.

Mountaintop Cities:

Aaron

What makes us cities built upon mountaintops, glittering like diamonds set upon mounts? What makes us the spice of the earth and the light of the world? It’s not the claims we make: ”I am a Christian. I am a Muslim. I am a Jew, I am a Buddhist. ” It’s not the claims we make; it’s the deeds we do. “Your good deeds must glow before others, and incite them to the praise of the Father in heaven” (Mt 5:16).

Remember the story of Aaron Feuerstein, the Jewish CEO and owner of Malden Mills in Methuen Mass, which make a very fine winter sport fabric called Polartec. We’ve told it before, and good stories are for telling and retelling. When Feuerstein’s mill burned down near Christmas of 1995, this seventy year old president of the firm didn't grab the insurance money and run, like good Enron CEO’s. Instead he held on to all his 2000 employees, and this Jewish CEO gave them all a Christmas bonus, kept paying their health insurance and weekly wages (15 dollars per hour) until the factory was rebuilt. Corporate America was stunned by such “insanity and abnormality,” and named him CEO of the year. Corporate American would be twice stunned in these days of Enron. Aaron didn’t understand what all the applause was about. He simply quoted his prophet Micah who, he said, calls us all, "to act justly, to be filled with loving kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Mic 6:8).

Oh Aaron Feuerstein, Jew though you are, you are a city built upon a mountain. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Your good deeds glow before others, and incite them to praise the Father in heaven.

Vernon

Here’s another good story for these days of hungry CEO’s. And this one too we’ve told to ourselves before, and again that’s what a good story makes you do. In 1997 I had to put my life-long companion, Tina, to sleep. Soon after, as I was checking out my groceries very early one morning, Vernon, the young black checkout man (black is part of the story), a nice guy whom everyone likes, noticed my grief. Before I knew it, he had transacted between his wallet and the cash register. Then he handed me the checkout slip. -- To express his sympathy with my grief, he had paid for my groceries! Here is a young black man, a blue-collar worker who has to dress in a white shirt, but doesn’t make in an entire lifetime one-tenth of what one Enron CEO made in one minute, and he’s paying for a white man’s groceries!

Oh Black Vernon (Baptist I’m sure), you are a city built upon a mountain. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Your good deeds glow before shoppers, and incite them to praise the Father in heaven.

Mailman

In my world and vision of things, here is another shining city built upon a mountain. Again it’s a good story with a lot of mileage to it. I stumbled upon it not too long ago. Yes, we stumble upon beautiful cities built on mountaintops. We stumble upon the savory salts of the earth and the shining lights of world. I am in my car, getting close to home, and here is this mailman getting out of his truck and a black cat comes running after him. Now in my neighborhood that indeed is strange. When cats and dogs see you coming they run for dear life, for they know how inhuman life can be. The mailman returns to his truck, pulls out a big bag of cat food, pours a good pile of it on the sidewalk, and the grateful cat, whose purr I could almost hear from my car, digs in. Before this earth-shattering act of humanity, I slowed down the car and gave the mailman a thumbs up.

He looked at me as though he knew what I was saying. I was saying, “Oh Mr. Mailman, you are a city built upon a mountain, especially in this neighborhood. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Your good deed glows in our neighborhood, and it incites us to praise the Father in heaven.” It surely glows before my widowed neighbor. She said to me this past week, “Oh he’s such a nice guy; I wish the Good Lord would send me one like him.”

Kurtis & Brenda

Another mountaintop city: Kurt, 22 was a stock boy in a supermarket and one day he was called to do a carryout job for a new clerk girl at register 4, a beautiful girl. Later that day he waited at the punch-out clock. She came, smiled softly at him, punched her card, then left. The card, he saw, read, “Brenda.”

Next day he offered to drive her home. He looked harmless enough, and she accepted. When he dropped her off, he asked whether he could see her again, and take her out. She explained she had two children and she couldn't afford a baby-sitter. He offered to pay for the baby-sitter. She hesitated a bit, and then accepted. Saturday night came. He arrived at the door. She said to him, “I can’t go; the babysitter cancelled out on me.” “Oh well,” he said, “let’s take the kids along.” “That’s really not an option,” she answered. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Finally Brenda invited him in to meet her children. She had a pretty daughter. Then she brought out her son in a wheelchair! He was born a paraplegic with Down syndrome. To her utter amazement, Kurt said, "I still don't understand why the kids can't come along." Most men would run away from that; her former husband had done precisely that.

That evening Kurt and Brenda loaded up the kids for dinner and the movies. When the son needed the rest room, Kurt picked him up and carried him. The kids loved him. A year later, they were married. Kurt adopted both of her children. Since then they have added two more kids of their own. Mr. & Mrs. Kurtis Warner now live in St. Louis, where he plays quarterback for the St. Louis Rams. This year he won the NFL’s MVP award.

This was sent to me by e-mail this past week. It was a kind of gentle rebuttal to last Sunday homily and my digs about Super Bowl heroes. The e-mail was entitled: “Sometimes heroes are heroes.” Oh Kurt, you are a city built on a mountain. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Your good deed glows for all the fans to see, and it incites them to praise the Father in heaven.

Mother Theresa

On September 6^th 1997 a princess, Diana her name, was buried. Exactly one week later, September 13, 1997, a pauperess, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, was buried. On that occasion a prominent Hindu called this solidly Roman Catholic nun "the Daughter of God" and he declared her religion as "unimportant." That was a very profound compliment. This saint of the gutter picked up hundreds and hundreds of dying human beings off the streets of Calcutta … not one of them a solid Roman Catholic like herself. All of them were dying of a spiritual leprosy communicated to them by an uncaring society and culture. Mother Theresa carried them to her Home for the Dying, where she kissed into them the belief that they were human beings, and that sent them off to heaven cured of their spiritual leprosy. They didn’t die Roman Catholics; they died cured. You never read that this great foundress of The Missionary Sisters of Charity ever baptized one single Hindu! Her great mission was not to make them Catholics but to make them human beings.

Oh Mother Theresa, for all India you were a shining city built on a mountain. You were a gem; you glittered like the “Star of India.” You were the salt of the earth. You were the light of the world. Your good deeds glowed for all India to see, and they incited the whole world to praise the Father in heaven.

Not “truth” but goodness

At this point we venture to say that good religion’s great task is not to seek the truth, i.e., the truth that makes you either a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or a Buddhist. Beware of “seekers of truth,” and especially seekers of religious truths. They write bumper stickers which declare that “God said it; I believe it; that settles it!” or which boastfully proclaim, “I found it!,” by which they mean, “I found the truth.” It’s really a finger in the eye for the “unenlightened.”

Beware of “seekers of the truth.” They can be dangerous. In Arabic, “Taliban” means “seeker of the truth.” And listen to the religious truth they found, with which they proceeded to terrorize Afghanistan and the world: “Television, dance, film, card-playing, neckties, photography, kite-flying, non-religious music are all wrong and are to be banned. Famous statues of giant Buddhas are all wrong and are to be destroyed. Women are not to go to school nor to work, and they must veil and hide their existence under burqas.”

We venture to say that good religion’s great task is not to seek truth -- the truth that converts us into a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist. Rather religion’s great task is to seek goodness -- the goodness that converts us into glittering cities sitting on mountain tops and into savory salts of the earth and luminous lights of the world.

A new “missiology”

We have here a new vision of mission, or as they say in a seminary classroom “a new missiology,” a new theology of mission. A vision in which the very first of all missions is the mission inward towards ourselves. A vision of mission in which the very first of all conversions is the conversion of ourselves. Conversion into what? Not into Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Buddhists. Rather conversion into shining cities built on mountains, and into salts of the earth and lights of world. That’s the first mission: the one inward toward ourselves, the one that converts ourselves.

After that comes the second mission: that’s the mission outward towards others. That’s the mission which converts the people around us, because they see the goodness that’s in us. Converts them to what? Not to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism. Rather converts them to the praise of the Father in heaven. “Let your light shine before others, so that they might see the goodness that’s in you, and give praise to the Father in heaven.”

Conclusion

Mission after 9/11

It’s a new vision of mission, demanded now more than ever before by the new age which burst upon us when the Twin Towers came crashing down on the 11^th of September. Make no mistake about it, at its deepest roots, that was an “act of mission.” Make no mistake about it, at its deepest roots, this is a religious war; the words are all there: “Martyrs” (not terrorists), “Jihads,” “Infidels,” “Believers,” “Evil Ones.” In the new vision of mission nobody wins, neither Jews, Christians, Muslims, or Buddhists. In the new vision nobody has to win! In the new vision of mission, it’s the Father in heaven receiving praise who wins. But at the end of the day, in the new vision of mission we all win. Jewish CEO Aaron Feuerstein, Black Baptist Vernon, the Mailman on the block, Quarterback Kurtis, Mother Theresa of India -- they are all shining cities sitting on mountain tops, and they are all winners.