Mission News: Meeting Jesus in Baltimore

By Jeanne Paynter

Outside of the empty tomb on Resurrection Sunday, Mary Magdalene and the mother of Jesus clung to their risen Lord; but He sent them off with a message: "I'm going on ahead of you to Galilee. Tell my brothers and sisters to meet me there."

Galilee? Lord, are you sure about this? Yes, that place was once home, but we left it all behind when we were called to follow you. Can anything good come out of Galilee? Even you couldn't do many miracles in Nazareth; their hearts are so hard. How about meeting us in Jerusalem instead? The temple is there; that's where we worship.

Jesus led his disciples back to their hometown, but this time it was going to be different. Now they would receive the resurrection power they needed to fulfill his mission on earth ~ power to preach the good news to the poor, power to give sight to the blind, and power to set the captives free.

For my husband and me, Baltimore is our hometown. Even as veteran city dwellers, in the protection of our leafy enclave, it's sometimes easy to ignore the needs of the urban areas that surround us. A change began in me this fall when I took a job working downtown. As I walked in the city streets, I felt welling up in me Jesus' love for my city and his love for the people I saw there each day. I just wasn't sure how to put that love into action. That's why I was so excited to hear about the eight-week experience, "Church Without Walls: Reaching Baltimore Through Social Action."

The goal of the class was to engage in some of the ministries that Central's Social Action Committee already supports. Our first experience was "connecting with another church," the Dynamic Deliverance Church in East Baltimore. Did we ever connect! We sang, prayed, praised, cried, and yes, even danced together. This church is committed to "deliverance" for their neighborhood; they are opening a day care center next door and hope to one day open a youth center.

New beginnings are the trade of the counselors at Genesis Jobs. We joined in as the counseling volunteers discussed how to match their clients with the right jobs. This ministry is about men and women empowered and dignified through work. In the weeks that followed, we continued to witness the resurrection power of Christ in the city. At the Helping Up Mission, we listened as the men testified to their victories over lives destroyed by drug abuse through their minute-by-minute reliance on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. In Sandtown, through Habitat for Humanity, we "hammered out" God's plan to restore a neighborhood, one family and one home at a time.

If Jesus' disciples ever questioned why he took them back to their hometown for ministry, perhaps they had forgotten that Galilee was to be "a light to the nations." In the "Church Without Walls" experience, I saw that there are lights all over Baltimore-lights of redemption, hope, and reconciliation. I felt like Job: "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you."

Baltimore? Lord, are you sure about this? Jesus answers: Meet me there.