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Following Jesus in nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, we love our neighbors and enemies as God loves us all, becoming a peace church to share in Gods work to save the world.

After the Storm

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Shelly Rambo
Chapter Sermon: “After the Storm”
January 16, 2008
Shelly Rambo, Assistant Professor of Theology at Boston University School of Theology, is connected with the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America which is a sponsoring group, along with ECAPC and others, of Churches Supporting Churches http://www.bpfna.org/csc
Tomorrow we will share more about CSC.

It’s eerie, really. The quiet. We are driving through the neighborhoods of the lower 9th ward in New Orleans, the area most affected by the hurricane. There is an unsettling hush. Windows boarded up, debris still scattered on untended lawns, house after house unoccupied. And then there are the chilling black ‘X’ marks on the post-Katrina houses, marks by inspectors—whose initials were scribbled to the left, inspections dates at the top, the number of hazards found to the right. Then there is the number at the bottom of the ‘X’—the number of dead bodies found inside. Passing the houses, most of which are still evacuated, you come to dread seeing the bottom number, hoping for a ‘0,’ as you drive past, house after house.

As we turn the corner on the way to Greater New St. Luke Baptist church, we see a vacant auto-garage. Spray-painted on one side, there are large red letters: “Do not demo. I will be back.” The sign for Bridgeside Automotive is on the front and above it are the words ‘Thank you Jesus’—both remnants of a pre-Katrina message and pre-Katrina business. Now, the roof is all but torn off. The spray-painted message just below: “We will rebuild.” It’s all written on that building – the messy message of New Orleans. It’s almost two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina and there are thousands of demolished buildings waiting for owners to return.
Just hours before the drive, we gathered with a group of ministers who meet monthly to support each other and to work together to rebuild their faith communities and the neighborhoods that surround them. Conversation begins with an assessment of the “state of things”: there is acknowledgment of tent city, a growing community of displaced persons living in tents under Interstate-10, and there is a report about the growing mortality and morbidity rates post-Katrina. Dwight Webster, pastor of Christian Unity Baptist Church, presided over the session and, between business, he would break into searing meditations about the long road ahead for the city of New Orleans, for the churches in New Orleans. You can’t separate issues of affordable housing from the gospel, of corrupt politics from the life of the church, of FEMA’s broken promises from the promises of God.

A rather soft-spoken man, Deacon Julius, followed up on Pastor Webster’s charge. He told us that he grew up in the 9th ward and that all of his family lived there at the time of Katrina. He had gone away to serve in the U.S. military but returned home after his years of service. Katrina wiped out his neighborhood. He says: “People keeping telling us to ‘get over it already.’” But I want to tell them: “The storm has gone, but the ‘after the storm’ will always be there. There are things that we can’t get back, the little things that can’t be recovered.” There’s anger in his voice, and defiance, and despair, and, strangely, faith. Faith that, in gathering with these other pastors and with us, that the ‘truths’ of Katrina will be told. The storm is over. But the after the storm will always be there.

On the tour of the lower 9th, Julius drove us past the site where he grew up. If you stand in his front yard, you can look straight ahead a

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