FOR ONE RIGHTEOUS PERSON

I'm finishing up Buzz Bissinger's "Prayer for the City," an intimate look at Ed Rendell's first term as mayor of Philadelphia in the mid-1990's. As the book's title suggests, Bissinger paints Rendell as a flawed but hopeful man who wills the survival of a city that is bleeding with population loss, violence, and racial tension. It is a well-written book that evokes the beautiful tragedy of the modern urban metropolis and causes you to sympathesize with "Fast Eddie" as he laments and exhorts and leads.

Though he was vilified for hamming it up in the national spotlight and focusing on downtown revitalization at the neglect of neighborhood transformation, I am a believer in Ed Rendell. He literally did save the city from financial ruin and emotional breakdown. We have a long way to go, but the fact that we have lived to fight another day is due in large part to the unflinching optimism and political prowess and ceaseless energy displayed by Ed Rendell during his first term as Philadelphia's mayor.

I am reminded of two parallel stories in the Bible. One is Abraham's haggling with God: will you decide against destroying the city of Sodom if you find fifty righteous people living there? How about 40? 30? 20? 10? The other is Ezekiel's horror at God's pronouncement of judgment on the city of Jerusalem; despite the prophet's desperate pleas, the heavenly executioner is released to his work of destruction. In both cases, God was not merciful; the cities were laid low.

What about Philadelphia, and a thousand other urban metropolises? There is nothing new under the sun; the personal and systemic evil that we are all guilty of, by commission and by omission, by willful intent and damning ignorance, is no greater or lesser than that which doomed Sodom and Jerusalem so many generations ago. Will God find in our cities faithful men and women willing to hope against hope, willing to admit to and repent of sin, willing to stand up to Him and cry out for mercy? Will He pardon my city for one righteous person?