Thursday, January 22, 2009

SLOWING DOWN ON THE STREET

I am doing a course on evangelism at the Pacific School of Religion this week for January term. Tomorrow is the last day of class already! I will probably share more about the course and J-term at the end of the week on this blog. However, I thought that my paper for tomorrow may be of interest on this blog as it involved observing a setting and trying to figure out how we would think of doing evangelism in this particular setting.

SLOWING DOWN ON THE STREET:

BRINGING GOD’S WORD OUTSIDE THE DOWNTOWN BERKELEY BART

I lingered outside of the BART in the downtown Berkeley area. It was still chilly out from the rain earlier today. To warm myself up, I bought myself a cup of tea from Tully’s, which is the coffee shop that is right outside the BART area. I was tempted to work on my reading for class for the day during this time but opted not to, as I wanted to fully enjoy what was going on around me. I felt drawn to hang out down there to observe for this project because just the previous weekend I went down to this part of town to go to the movies. On the way to the movies, I briefly talked with a homeless man and then another woman stopped me, wanting to know where I had purchased my shoes because she really liked them. These varied interchanges that I had last weekend made me intrigued to see what kind of conclusions I would come to for this assignment just hanging out on the street downtown.

One of the very first things that I noticed was a rose sitting on top of a garbage can. That seems like the last place you would expect to find something so beautiful. And yet I realized that I usually get caught up in the busy-ness that goes around the area in my own way, so it seemed metaphorical to some of the things that I found myself able to observe in the downtown area.

I saw several people in wheelchairs, one woman who I found by herself. There were school aged children heading from the BART, there were university students heading toward the BART. There were people who were rushing to work, there were people who were rushing home from work. There were people who had used the BART to get downtown to enjoy the various businesses that are in the area, as there are many fun shops and restaurants in the area. I heard people speak in different languages, I observed people who were in wheelchairs. While the destination they were heading to and the social location in which that they were coming from was all visibly different, these facts remained the same: most of them used the BART for their transportation, whether it was out of convenience in not wanting to park in downtown Berkeley or out of not having the economic means to have a car. But they shared this means of transporting themselves in common. The other thing that they seemed to share in common is a sense of rushing from one thing to the next.

The good news that this setting makes me think of is how God’s love is for everyone. It does not matter what the color of your skin is, how much money you make, where you are heading, or how important or unimportant society makes you feel. God loves everyone equally. But how often within a crowd of people do we really notice each other? How often when people are approached on the street it is for money or to sign on to a cause? What if someone stopped them on the street, not to do any of these things but to let them know that God loves them? What if someone really listened when asking “how are you” instead of having it be a form of greeting! This is a way that an evangelist could operate on the street! There was a man selling flowers on the corner of the street, what if someone were to buy flowers from him and to pass them out to anyone along with the message that God loves them? It could come along with no requests for money, and no requests to make anyone do anything. Because that is what the Lutheran understanding of what God’s grace for us through Jesus is! Questions that people may have about this could lead to being moments of sharing more of the story of Jesus or an invitation to church.

However, this was only one of the observations that I found that I had hanging out around the downtown BART station. There were two young men who were in their twenties who were playing music outside the BART station. It struck me that this is the most that I ever heard anyone play on the street. It usually is because I either pass them by and only catch part of what they are doing or because if I do stop, it is only for one song. I observed that this is the pattern in which most people took doing this as well. I realize that I received a good portion of a concert just hanging out in the street as well. It seemed reminiscent of the rose that I had found earlier in such an unexpected place in the regards that I was hearing something beautiful. The Holy Spirit often works through our own creations of art, poetry and music. This is a reminder of how beautiful God has made the world surrounding us.

In terms of the evangelism that I thought would be potentially pertinent in this particular situation, I could not help but think that it would be really powerful if someone just stopped and listened to the music a street performer did for more than just a song. I wasn’t a visible audience, however in terms of evangelism, what if someone sat down and just listened to them for the rest of the duration when they were playing? One of the songs that I heard them play, the singer kept singing “you don’t know my name” over and over again. And I found it ironic that people just kept walking by when he was singing this. It made me think of the Simon and Garfunkel’s line “people hearing without listening” in their “Song of Silence.” It was as though that noise was something they could deal with, but did they understand the underlying message? Did they really get it?

I would like to think that if someone just lingered and listened to a performer for an entire afternoon, that they would learn their name and maybe some of the stories behind the music. The most that they get from people is spare change, not a captive audience. And an evangelist that could do this could share their own story, possibly building bridges between what was being said in these stories and in these songs. There is one who not only knows each of our names, but the number of hairs on our head. This is God who loves them so much! If the performer wanted to be compensated for having someone listen to them that much, maybe an invitation for more conversation over lunch or coffee would be a wonderful way to build a relationship.

The other person I observed was a homeless man selling the Streetwise newspaper on the corner of the street. I made sure to give him my spare dollar in exchange for the Streetwise. Upon observing him, I went and sought him out specifically to get Streetwise. Then as I observed the other things going on around me, I kept noticing him in the corner of my eye. He was persistent in talking to people, in acknowledgement of the economy I heard him telling people that no matter how little they could give for Streetwise he would take. I observed that few people gave him any money. The more I observed this, the more concerned that I felt that he would be able to eat. I wanted to make sure that he would be able to eat dinner before I left the downtown area, but I lost track of him.

This made me think of something that I know a friend of mine had done before, which is going out into the streets and inviting homeless people to go to lunch with him. Why couldn’t this be a form of evangelism? This could be a way to really get to know what the homeless person’s experience is and they would become more of a person instead of someone who received your leftover quarter. This could also be a way to share the fact that God loves them too. As a young woman, however, I have been advised listen to my gut feelings in terms of keeping myself safe. The fine line I walk is while I do not want to act discriminatory, listening to my instincts is important when it comes to keeping myself safe in surviving the city on my own. So I think that this kind of evangelism opportunity would be best done in pairs to be smart about this. Being in pairs to do this would reduce the personal risk factor and increase the amount of people who are showing compassion towards a homeless person. I think that this could be a very powerful experience in terms of sharing God’s love and hearing about another person’s experience of being on the margins of our culture.

The last thing I observed was a sign right outside the BART that read “Marriage is the important means of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. This is done through sexual purity before marriage and absolute sex after marriage.” My initial instinct from this sign was that God’s kingdom was here amongst everything I had just seen, whether it was a homeless man, the street performers or the various people running to and from the BART. I seriously thought as though I was seeing the beauty of God’s creation around me, and the tension between that beauty now and the justice that needs to occur for even more of the kingdom to be fulfilled on earth so that no one feels marginalized. I found myself heading to the sign as it had more information, another man was reading the same information. He turned to me and said, “I bet these people are not supportive of same sex marriage,” then he walked away. Then it hit me: even though this is not a theology I personally endorse, right outside the BART is a great place to put a sign to get someone’s attention. Clearly even though this man and I did not view it favorably, we at least took the time to look at it and see what was there. What if a sign was there for a Lutheran church that emphasized God’s amazing love for the world? At least the location would receive more attention.

It was not long after this that my mint tea was gone, and I realized the two hours had flown by. I also realized that there were a variety of ways that I thought about being an evangelist on this street corner in ways that seemed rather simple: through putting a sign up, through inviting a homeless man to lunch, through taking time to listen at length to a street performer and through simply telling people on the streets that God loves them. And yet, I think I would find if I were to attempt to implement any of these I would feel nervous because I realize how radical this message of God’s love for the world really is. Yet it would need to be implemented radically too, as it would involve slowing down on the street to really notice the roses on the garbage cans in addition to really taking the time to notice people.