The homeless man wore a cap identifying him as a Vietnam veteran. His face and knuckles bore the dirty red scabs of a recent fight, and, I’ll confess, I was a little bit frightened as he held my hand with a grip like a trash compacter. His eyes looked like they were getting moist as he thanked me for the cup of coffee and the sandwich which I and other volunteers from Grace Lutheran Church of Yorktown Heights had brought to this homeless encampment under the portico of a skyscraper off Columbus Circle in Manhattan.
“I can’t believe you people came all the way down here just for us,” he said. “Can I ask you something? Would you go over there and give Charlie some soup? I don’t think he can walk.”
Charlie was lying on a piece of cardboard from an old appliance carton and wrapped in a dirty sleeping bag. He looked like he was 100 years old, his face dirty and unshaven. He could barely sit up to take the soup I offered. I remember thinking, “This guy is going to die out here on the streets.”
It was well after 1 AM, and I and the other volunteers had other stops to make that night. We were participating with an organization called Midnight Run which brought food, clothing, and blankets to the homeless of New York City during the wee hours when traffic was light and the police looked the other way. My vicariate congregation had been involved in this ministry for several years, but this was my first time encountering the people who had been forgotten by everyone but the God who created them.
It was eye-opening. Just as eye-opening as my pre-seminary experience as a Los Angeles middle school teacher had been. That was the first time that I really encountered poor people—people whose reduced circumstances included a singular lack of hope. Maybe that was when I began to grow down.
Grow down? Aren’t we supposed to grow up as we get older? The psychologist James Hillman[i] suggests that our culture always tends to think of progress as rising higher, yet he maintains that real growth is a downward movement—a movement out of the realm of ethereal comfort and into the earthy practicality of this world. We learn to live by getting our hands dirty, by touching and seeing, and knowing a bleaker side of mortality. We grow by challenging ourselves to love the uncomfortable, the unpleasant, and the frightening parts of humanity we’d rather not think about.
Our whole Christology is based on the idea that Jesus grew down. We confess in the Nicene Creed that “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human.” Born into a peasant’s life, suffering persecution and death, Jesus joined himself with us. In the Gospel lesson appointed for Maundy Thursday (John 13:1-17,31b-35), we hear the story of how he descended voluntarily to take on the task of the slave or of the least-regarded member of any household—the one charged with the indignity of washing the dirty feet of others.
He also charges us—the church—with the responsibility and the command to grow downward and know him by embracing the least and the lowest. After my experience with Midnight Run, I discussed my participation with a classmate who was also serving in the Metro New York Synod. Norm rolled his eyes with exasperation. “I wish I could get my congregation to be involved, but all they think they need to do is write a check. They think that’s loving the poor. They don’t actually want to encounter the poor.”
And maybe this is our problem. Do we in the American church really want to get our hands dirty? Do we only want comfort? Or are we willing to grow down into incarnational ministry? Are we willing to talk about unpleasant subjects? Would we march with Black Lives Matter, or discuss racism, sexual misconduct, and poverty? Instead of writing the check, are we willing to volunteer at the food cupboard and listen to the stories of those who need our assistance? Or do we just want to be above it all?
I’m proud of the work my congregation does, but I have to acknowledge how few people actually do it. We have sheltered homeless families through Interfaith Hospitality Network, but always with the same handful of volunteers. We have grown food for the hungry in our garden, but only a small number of folks have done the planting and tending.
I don’t know if the church can grow or survive without a willingness to grow down. It’s not enough to be alone in the garden with Jesus. Sometimes we need to stand at the foot of the cross.
[i]
See James Hillman The Soul’s Code: In
Search of Character and Calling (New York: Warner Books, 1997)
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