c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
NEW ORLEANS _ The Rev. Lance Eden hasn’t been a pastor for a full year, but the United Methodist minister with a congregation of fewer than 100 has already presided over a dozen funerals.
In this city, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, death and destruction have become all too familiar. Eden says Good Friday resonates in new ways.
“Being able to understand how Jesus suffered, and understanding our suffering, knowing that if Jesus suffered, and we’re followers of Christ, there’s going to be some suffering we’re going to face,” Eden told the PBS program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”
Across town, another first-year pastor, the Rev. Jerry Kramer, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, also finds the legacy of Katrina looming large over Holy Week.
“We are people who are standing at the foot of the cross, really,” he said. “We’ve been in Good Friday since late August. We live in both the reality of the cross but also the reality of the Resurrection, and we are caught in that tension.”
Even apart from Katrina, Easter can be a busy _ and stressful _ time for pastors. Both ministers say clergy on the Gulf Coast feel especially burdened this year as they balance their regular pastoral duties while dealing with their own losses and ministering to congregations that are still trying to recover from the storm.
Eden, 27, came to First Street United Methodist Church last June, a brand new seminary graduate. He grew up near New Orleans and was thrilled to be coming home. First Street is one of the oldest African-American churches in the city, founded in 1833. In recent years, the church had been experiencing a decline.
“I think they (the congregation) just needed a rebirth, something new, a young person to come in and ignite that fire,” he said.
By August, the church was feeling new momentum and adding new members. Then Katrina hit.
While the historic church building sustained only minor damage, the congregation was scattered. Many members have still not been able to return to the city and their homes.
Because the church couldn’t afford a parsonage, Eden, who is single, was living with his grandmother, about a half-hour’s drive from the church. Katrina ruined their home.
“We lost everything,” he said. “Everything from cars to personal items.”
Added Eden, “It was described as like losing a loved one but not being able to bury them. And you’re stuck with that loss and having to deal with it every day.”
Such losses help him relate to where people are and where they’ve been, he said.
Kramer, of the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, also says he can relate.
He and his family moved into their house in June after being missionaries in Africa. They were still renovating when Katrina hit.
A week after the storm, he boated in and found his new home flooded with nearly eight feet of water. He was able to rescue his children’s pet hamster but few possessions. He’s still fighting with insurance companies and waiting for revised city flood codes before he decides whether to try to renovate or just tear the house down. In the meantime, his family is living in a tiny apartment about a half-hour away from the church.
“We have to pay the mortgage on our house (but) we don’t have our tenant anymore and the mortgage was predicated on having the tenant. And then we have to pay for an apartment at an exorbitant rate and at the end of the month, it doesn’t work,” he said.
He’s dealing with the same issues at the church, where flood lines are still visible on the altar.
While the insurance is being sorted out, the church has brought in double-wide trailers to serve as offices, sanctuary and multipurpose rooms.
The church has an active relief effort, passing out supplies to people still reeling from the storm. About half the 100 parishioners have returned, and Kramer said ministering to them is a huge pastoral challenge.
“You know, it’s so hard to go through life without any givens, particularly in the most important aspects of your life _ where you live, where you work, where you worship, where your kids go to school, where you get medical care. There are just no answers, and there aren’t going to be any, any time soon,” Kramer said.
Kramer said he’s wearing numerous hats.
“I’ve got to be teacher,” Kramer said. “I’ve got to be community activist, working with our neighborhood people. I have to be relief worker, out there in the streets with our crew. I have to be cheerleader, keeping their spirits up, and I have to be counselor. I have to be priest and pastor.”
He’s also become a tour guide, showing volunteers the extensive hurricane damage. And fundraiser, often on the road and in the air, visiting other churches. “Just making connections with other parishes and congregations, sharing our story, and seeking their generosity to help us weather this,” he said.
The church is forging new partnerships with other groups in the neighborhood in the rebuilding effort. Kramer said they are trying to make the most of new opportunities to have an impact on this diverse community.
“What is God calling us to be in this new environment, this new landscape, which is a great big mission field?” he asked.
He said he tries to maintain a disciplined prayer life so he doesn’t spiritually burn out. But he said his ministry is also energizing.
“An old spiritual director told me I had a very Jesuit spirituality; I was a doer. You know _ I’m fed by doing, and there is plenty to do.”
Eden, too, finds much of his time taken up in the relief effort as a volunteer coordinator.
First Street’s multipurpose room has been transformed into a giant dorm room where the church houses up to 100 volunteers every week. Eden supervises where they go and what they do. Their crews can gut a house in a day.
“It’s an ever-going process and work,” he said. “The problem is, the government is not doing it, the city’s not doing it. The only organized group that’s doing it is the churches.”
Eden acknowledges he rarely slows down.
“The church has been my life from childhood,” he said. “It was the center of the community. So being here is not always so stressful to me.”
He gets his spiritual refreshment listening to gospel music in his car, he said.
“My head is bopping; you would think I was one of the hip-hoppers with other music going,” he said. “But gospel music inspires me in a way that no other music does. … It just lifts you up.”
Eden said his 84-year-old grandmother helps center him spiritually. He recently took her to visit the cemetery where their family is buried. Graves there were ravaged by the storm. He said it helped him understand the feeling of being between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.
“We’re that Saturday, that day that those old preachers say Jesus went down to the gates of hell and took the keys and everybody was waiting on what was going to happen next,” he said. “We’re in that waiting moment to see what’s going to happen.”
Eden said he sees resurrection in the daily miracles around him _ desperately needed money that comes in unexpectedly or volunteers who want to help. And people who are surviving, despite the circumstances.
“You get these stories, and I say, `Hey, look at God. God provided.’ So the persons I look at, and I see every day, I say, you are still here and now that’s a blessing in itself,” he said.
At Church of the Annunciation, Kramer calls it finding “explosions” of grace amid the rubble.
“We see God’s grace. We see people being really transformed by the Holy Spirit,” he said. “And we see people giving so much of themselves who’ve lost everything. You can’t but walk around and see the power and the reality of the resurrection and the kingdom coming.”
Both pastors say that is the ultimate Easter message _ that death doesn’t have the final word.
MO/DEA/PH END LAWTON
(A version of this story first appeared on the PBS program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.” This article may be reprinted by RNS clients. Please use the Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly credit line.)
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