From Under The Overpasses:
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Matthew 8:20 & Luke 9:58
Under There's job is to serve the homeless. He does not give a location, because he writes about real homeless people, and he wishes to preserve their anonymity. I check in at his blog from time to time, because I admire his work and his deeply respectful manner toward his clients and his gentle and compassionate words when he speaks of them. He cannot look away from the homeless as I am often tempted to do. He's there with them every single work day.
Under There goes on to say:
As a Christian, all of my God-talk is meaningless until I do business with the raw realities of what it means to be incarnated into a world that is full of bewildering obstacles to beauty, truth and goodness. I have a good friend who constantly reminds me that Jesus was not crucified between two candles on a beautifully adorned altar. The grammar of my faith is also incomplete if I ignore the fact that the life that led to the cross was not lived in the pristine jewel tones of stained glass, but the muted earth tones of those who are ground under the wheels of oppressive domination. Historically, there is a very long parade of Christian voices that speak of Jesus of Nazareth as God. I have no idea of just how that is possible, but I do know that if I take that confession of faith seriously, then it means I am about to drag the term God through the mud, and maybe over a dumpster or two.
....
Jesus was rejected, hungry, harassed by the authorities, transiently moved from town to town, called a drunk, glutton, and an associate of prostitutes and sinners. He was both deemed to be mentally ill and derided as being somehow under the influence of the devil. To say that somehow God is intertwined with the real flesh and blood conditions experienced by Jesus of Nazareth, is to break the sacred glass around the term God and allow Jesus to sully it ten times more than I am about to here. To speak of Jesus as God is to speak of a homeless God whose only registration in the system was an arrest and an execution warrant by the State.
....
Until we can come to terms with what is means to proclaim tangible good news to the people who live here, literally in the shadow of some of the most luxurious properties and respectable churches, all of our pieties are simply gilded abstractions divorced from the concrete realities that every atheist has an honest right to rage about.
I urge you to read his entire post and look at his pictures, although I have lifted a goodly portion of his words to post here.
In his comments, I said this:
Grandmère Mimi said...
"Lord, when did we see you?" Today, Jesus is under the overpasses in close proximity to the grand homes and churches.
Sometimes, I think we should sell the churches, give the money to the poor and have church in our homes, or better yet, under the overpasses.
Sometimes, I think we are playing at having church, in our fine clothes, with silk vestments, and gold and silver vessels. I've been here before with you, UT. I have no answers, but keep showing us the humble icons. If we look away, we look away from the face of Christ.
As I said, I have no answers, only questions, but I experience a dissonance between what I see in the churches and what UT talks of in his posts on the people under the overpass. I love my church. I fell in love with the liturgy of the Episcopal Church at my first visit. My church community is vital to my spiritual life. I know that churches reach out to the homeless in many different ways and that some actually have church where the homeless live. I wonder if that should be the norm, rather than the occasional activity.
What a beautiful post, Mimi! Our little church has a free lunch program and we fed more than 5,000 meals to the hungry last year. I don't know what our final count will be in 2008, but it will surely be more because more and more people show up every day for lunch. When I say we are a small church, I mean small. Our weekly Sunday morning attendance averages around 50 souls. It is a struggle for us to keep up, but somehow we do. We all feel so passionate about this ministry.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely read "Under the Overpasses". Your excepts make me think that I will need to share this with my fellow vestry members. Thanks so much for sharing.
PegLeg, I commend the people in your church for their passion for the ministry of feeding the hungry. For a church community of your size, you do a mighty work.
ReplyDeleteWhen I head over to read Under There's posts, I know that the comfortable in me will surely be afflicted.
Amen. If we think of church activity under the three headings of worship, fellowship, and mission, I often reflect on two questions: (1) Why have we made 'worship' ('going to church in Sundays') the non-negotiable and relegated the other two to the 'if you like that sort of thing' category? (2) What would happen if we made mission (in the widest possible sense - word and deed) the non-negotiable factor instead?
ReplyDeleteI say this not to point fingers but to upbraid myself for my own lack of concern for others.
Grandmere --I love this post, for so many reasons. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAs to your other thoughts --everything we do as Christians must first be grounded in worship and community. How and what that might look like should be organic and contextual --and I would propose that what we have done in our current church worship is model European medieval cathedral services and tried to make them norm for every where and every place. Perhaps this should no longer be so. There is so much exciting work being done in this area....
So. Yes--we must begin to think in different ways about worship, absolutely, and not spend so much time being institutional.... but I emphasize again, for Christians, worship is central to service, education, --any ministry we might undertake. --even ministry under the overpasses.
does that make sense?
Hope so....
Mimi, I am thankful that our little church has embraced this work. And as you say, in the process, the "comfortable" in all of us has been afflicted. It's been interesting to see how the other churches in town have responded and how people who live in the neighborhood near our church and who identify themselves as "good Christians" have responded. I guess you could say that they've been afflicted too.
ReplyDeleteThat is quite a post Mimi. I am so behind in blogreading, I have not been to UTO in a few days.
ReplyDeleteI love what he says and then what you go on to add.
So much of faith is how we find God through and with one another and that means all the "one anothers" that we would rather not deal with.
I haven't visited Under There in some time--so hard to keep up with everyone. You've reminded me why I got that big bloggity crush on him in the first place.
ReplyDeleteService. It's all about service. That is how we show the face of Christ to others.
Yes, there is a dissonance, and yes, it should be the norm.
ReplyDeleteAt sermon this Sunday, I remembered a former bishop who dragged a t-shirt around with him everywhere he went. Front side said "leader", back side said "servant".
Time for us to get "back" to this sort of "front".
Under There gets the credit for this post, because it consists mainly of his words and it is, most certainly, his inspiration that made it happen.
ReplyDeleteThanks all for the thoughtful comments. I believe that worship must be central, but the model does not necessarily always need to be medieval cathedral type worship. Mission must be emphasized more, and as we focus on mission and outreach, the sense of fellowship in the community will grow and the community worship will get better.
Margaret, what you say makes perfect sense to me, and I like your thoughts, too, Tim. Missy, you're absolutely right about service.
Time for us to get "back" to this sort of "front".
Scott, absolutely.
My vision would consist of going out of the confines of the church building more and opening up the church building itself in new ways to new people, not necessarily folks we think of as conventional church people. However, I'm afraid that I have few answers as to how to make my vision a reality.
In our case here, grandmere, and my guess is in your case as well, it can be done easily by looking our nearest neighbor straight in the eye.
ReplyDelete(did I say "straight" - omg - [big smile])
Scott, the straight part would be a stretch for you. ;o)
ReplyDeleteAh, you are speaking to my heart. The local churches here really do a good job on rotating support for feeding those in need (the shelter, lunch programs, community pantry donations). There are endless ways to help (particularly if you like to cook).
ReplyDeleteOne of the most moving experiences I had during dinner duty at the shelter is something I'll probably never forget. A couple of our clergy residents were on the team and came straight from church in their collars. Word came into the kitchen...did one of the priests have time to talk after dinner? It made my heart sing. You feed people all at one seating, but save lives one at a time.
Lynn, it's great that the churches in your community get together to serve those in need.
ReplyDeleteWe have no homeless in our town, nor do we have a homeless shelter. The homeless are given a one-way ticket to a nearby large city. That doesn't mean that we don't have needy people. The food bank is doing a brisk business, even running low in supplies of food.