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Since it is located on a bluff overlooking the mighty Mississippi River, Memphis is a regional city serving four or five states, not just Tennessee. In other words, if you’re from a smaller community in one of the corners of those neighboring states, Memphis is yourtown. That was certainly true for me growing up in northeast Arkansas. Our TV antennas picked up Memphis stations, and The Commercial Appeal gave us our printed news. When we needed to go to the big city, Memphis was the place of choice.

 

And it was exciting to visit on those occasions when we crossed the river. There was Overton Park, the zoo, athletic events at Memphis State University (now University of Memphis), the Memphis Chicks (now Redbirds), the Liberty Bowl, and the kind of shopping a small town could not provide. You could go into a real honest-to-goodness Sears store, located on Poplar Avenue, where you could actually buy something and take it home with you instead of having to order it out of a catalog. My wife Janet is from Forrest City, about a forty-five minute drive west. I used to tease her mother that she thought Memphis was a Forrest City suburb; they came over so often.

 

Coming from the west, as we did, the bridge spanning the Mississippi became a symbol of that crossing from our part of the world to another. The bridge (and now there are two) are icons for the city of Memphis, and so, provide the image for our gathering here this week.

 

Folk from these parts have seen the Mississippi when it is so swollen it runs over its banks for miles. In fact, we’ve had so much rain this spring it did it again. But we’ve also seen it so low that century-old shipwrecks can be seen sticking up through sand barges. Yet, this mighty river, as the song says, “just keeps rolling along.”

 

But there’s a downside to this part of the world. Poverty is real, and even though we’re racing full speed ahead into the 21^st century, and we should have put such things behind us, much of the old plantation mentality still exists. There is racism here, and attitudes that do not do credit to the gospel.

 

But there is hope springing from the silt of these Delta lands, and people who call themselves “Baptist” are a vital part of that hope. Sharing the gospel means breaking barriers, and here on the banks of this great river we have more than our share... which is why we have built bridges.

 

To borrow an image from a missionary friend of mine who lives just beyond the way, people who are bridges to hope get walked over, but in that journey people get from one side to the other. And when you live in despair, getting to the other side – to hope – is what life in Christ is about.

 

We are here in Memphis this week because we believe in the journey. We have invested our lives in the pilgrimage of hope and want to share it with one another and with those who so desperately need the presence of the Christ who has brought us together in this place.

 

If I may be so bold as to suggest to you what to do this week while you are in Memphis (other than the many tourist opportunities, of course)... look deeply into the faces of those you will meet. Their skin may be a different color from yours, and their dialect just a bit unfamiliar. They may walk and talk in such a way that you have to ponder what it all means. But in them you find the children of God who are saying to you, “Embrace me, accept me, give me hope.” And if you will respond, you will have crossed a bridge yourself and discovered in that person the face of Christ.

 

In doing so, I think you will have found that Memphis is a perfect place for embracing our part of the world. And we can do it by building bridges. Don’t you agree?