Literally the first glimpse of sun in Durham this year.
My coffee this morning was espresso, black, straight, no sugar.
I placed the mug that held the steaming black liquid on the shining metal table top. I placed the aluminum chair I was sitting on close to the radiator which was now reaching the maximum heat that would eventually, hopefully, fill the upper room of Sanctuary 21 with much needed warmth.
Despite the clear blue skies and rich golden sunbeams, it was still very cold.
In from the cold walked a guy.
A guy I know really well.
Homeless, hungry, angry.
His young face cut an expression of measureless hurts. His head was pointing down to the floor, his shoulders hunched into a protective retreat, making his neck almost invisible. His skin was pallor, a faint layer of sweat slicked his forehead. His unwashed clothes hung badly on his thin frame. They looked almost two sizes too big.
He looked kind of morphed, like dejection had come to life as a man.
He was angry because someone had taken his sleeping bag, from where he had stashed it in a city back alley where it was usually safe.
But someone had taken it.
He had spent the night without a sleeping bag.
He was dejected, demoralized and angry.
He got a hot drink and pulled up a chair at my table.
We talked.
His tales of street life came rapidly from his soft dejected voice like a fast torrent of pain.
He was down. Down on his luck, down on himself, down on life.
And the there is me.
I'd got up this morning and come to work on this sun drenched morning feeling good about life. My strength is up, my focus is as straight as my black coffee. I'd been sitting at this shiny metal table for an hour, replying to emails, getting my business straight before walking into the messes of people's lives and trying to help.
I'd already prayed on route to work and was ready.
Ready for anything.
Despite some setbacks in the last few months, this morning I'm glad to be alive, glad to be a minister.
Life is good.
Two guys.
Two incredibly different worlds.
Face to face over a round metal table.
I feel like I'm a citizen of the kingdom of God.
The guy opposite me feels like he has no home. Probably because he literally doesn't.
Yet he does. We are his home just now. We are his family. God is always his father. Citizenship of the kingdom is attainable for him.
As we talk a faint glow of redness begins to color his cheeks as the warmth of the radiator kicks in. I manage to talk him Into a reduction of his anger, and he visibly softens and quietens down. The warmth of his hot coffee also serves this situation well. I sort him out a sleeping bag. For tonight. He has declined numerous offers of help to get him housed, even a bed for the night, it's frustrating. And he's burnt his bridges with all of the local homeless hostels though his own often criminal behavior. But. He makes this choice. And I can't persuade him to get help.
So here we are.
Two different lives on the same planet.
In the same city.
On the same morning.
There seems to me to be a disconnection between us. Thats what it feels like. A bit like a bridge that has collapsed between two high mountains.
I've spoken to this guy about a different world, the kingdom of God, where things will be vastly different for him. Many times, he always listens, but always has an answer why that's not for him. He can't see that there is a bridge, a way, a path to this kingdom.
Mission is hard.
It's not always the glamorous jet-printed words on a nice compact mission plan. It's not always the ideas birthed in a cool conference in some functional conference centre. It's not always the blatant shaping of churches that think they are successful and the latest model of church. It's not the high level of anointing the world renowned evangelists are sometimes portrayed as having. It's not the clever church planting mandates written so eloquently by the experts. It's not determined by uniform, hoodie, suit jeans, tracky bottoms, shiny shoes or well worn trainers, or any other attire for that matter. It's not always about which translation of the bible over-theologically challenged people seem to think should be used in churches.
Yeah.
Mission is not glamorous.
So I sit face to face with the reality of mission.
Over a shiny table.
A guy, dejected, needy, broken. Fretting about a very immediate problem. Wether he will be warm or not tonight in a shop doorway somewhere.
I deal with his pressing need. Right here and now. Get him a sleeping bag.
Then I pray for him, pray for his even more pressing need, to know the savior, to know that there is another world, a kingdom, where a new perspective can be found.
Right now that's all I can do.
I wish I could write on my blog that as I prayed he fell to his knees and accepted Jesus as savior and he stood up ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. Drama that takes your breath away, then everybody clapped and we danced on the tables at the wonder of it all.
But it didn't happen that way today.
Yet I feel a peace penetrating my frustration.
And I think it's because the small things, the supply of a sleeping bag for instance, somehow brings the kingdom closer to this guy, the fact that we are here for this guy, who has been rejected by society, written off by many, scorned by many too. As I reflect this morning I wonder how many? How many of these people? How many millions are despised, rejected, written off? Marginalized? I guess I'll never know the answer to that, but I do know the answer to that situation, and I have to commit my life deeper to pointing them to the kingdom.
There are so many.
No elaborate mission plan can really help them?
I don't think anyway.
Only the simple things.
The small kindnesses, the openness of our hearts, the willingness of our bodies, the availability of our love, the quickness of our mission-minds to deal with the pressing needs of the whosoever.
Yeah those things I guess are the stuff of mission.
I think Booth had it spot on when he kind of said that "You can't give a man the gospel on an empty stomach."
I think we are giving a man the gospel, even as the food is being prepared and served!
It's about the openness, the love, the purpose.
This guy has just gone.
I'm sitting at the table. Alone once again.
He has his new sleeping bag in an old black bin liner.
Calmer, warmer, and ready for his day, whatever that may be. I dread to think.
But my resolve is strengthened through this simple encounter.
To keep myself open to the whosoever. To whatever crosses my path.
I pray today that same resolve will always be carried to the mission field by us, the church.
That we will always be ready to do the small things as well as the big things.
A relentless flow of unconditional love that will bring people closer to the kingdom.
