God acts in funny ways. Until
this morning when I stumbled across it during morning prayer, I was not aware
that today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. And I doubt our
guests at Manna House knew of this feast. Few of them come from Christian
traditions with a liturgical calendar. But it was on this morning that a guest
asked me to take his picture in front of the crucifix in the chapel in the
backyard of Manna House. And then in rapid succession five more guests asked
for the same. What was going on?
It took me a while to figure it out. But it started to come together
when a guest asked me for the “Word for the Day.” Because it was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, I shared from Hebrews
13:12-15 about the crucifixion of Jesus, “Therefore
Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to make the people holy by
his own blood/life. Let us then go to him outside the city walls and
bear the abuse he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking
for the city that is to come.”
“I live outside the city walls,” a
guest said.
“What are you talking about? What
walls?”
“We’re walled out. Invisible walls,
but strong walls.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Are there places you can’t go? Are
there places you’re not welcome? Walls around them places. You’re outside those
walls.”
“Jesus outside the walls; Jesus with
us.”
“Jesus.”
"Ain't no city for us here."
Our guests know the cross. Our guests know crucifixion.
They have state sanctioned violence come at them through cops and security
guards and jails. They have culturally supported violence come at them through being
jumped while they walked the streets. They have economic violence come at them
through having no work, or not being paid for work that they did.
So today some of our guests at Manna House wanted their pictures taken
with Jesus, crucified outside the walls. God acts in funny ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment