there's a presbyterian church a block from me that has limped along for several years now. the church bell only rings at midnight when local youth climb the belfry and pull the rope with what i imagine from my bed to be intense hormonal gusto. the sign sits askew on a brick wall near the sidewalk, and the worship times are etched in and then crossed out and etched in again with pen and pencil. church starts at 9am, no 10am, no 9:30am....
we met jack hodges, the current pastor, at the neighborhood association meeting. i wonder if he's evangelical; he doesn't have that nervousness that most evangelicals have about them. he's not in a hurry to buy us lunch.
(don't get me wrong, i think talking about Jesus is beautiful, when it comes from a place of peace, not panicky compulsion.)
i've seen him outside lately laying bricks and washing the windows of his church. a few days ago he was tending his bloody finger he sliced on the venetian blinds he was washing. other days he's scrubbing the sidewalk in front of the church and blithely, heartily laughing with what i assume to be his congregates as he works alongside them in the beautification process.
this is so striking to me.
so striking to see a pastor doing the unseen servant work.
we are in an age of celebrityism. (maybe we always have been.) everyone wants to be an american idol. (admittedly, i watched this last season because i was on bed rest from my labor with ruah for 6 weeks. i did, tragically, get tired of books. i know it's hard to imagine and even harder to admit.)
at least half of the contestants on american idol were christians. one of them was a worship leader at his church. i can't say what's in the heart of those people, but i can say that the last thing the world needs is another person, especially another christian, who wants to be famous.
i think of all the hoopla around recent christian authors and writers and speakers and whatnots.
it makes me ill. for good reasons and bad. i think a good chunk of the bile rises in my throat when i'm feeling insecure and unsure of God and how beautiful God is, not believing that to be at the center of what Christ is doing is such a place of honor, so i want that adoration for myself.
it's quicker and easier. doesn't cost much.
i was talking with a prominent artist 5 years ago or so and asked him about the poor. he said that it wasn't his calling to care for the poor, he was called to be a writer.
precisely. of course it's not our calling to do the shit of the world that no one wants to do. of course it's not our calling to care for people who have bad breath and bad attitudes and who will never say thank you. of course it's not our calling to scrub the sidewalk. it's our calling to be upfront and have all the eyes and attention on us. of course.
and yet Christ did not seek the equality of God, but laid it down and took up the cross (phillipians). i mean, isn't that the deal with fame? wanting equality with God? wanting that power and that control over people and that love from them?
and then there's jack, not out promoting himself or creating listserves so people will know when his next performance will be. he's out there in the rain, scrubbing and doing things that no one will really see--i mean, who notices the dirt on venetian blinds? he's doing the menial servant work.
i have no idea what his sermons are like or if i would even agree with them, but he preaches the Gospel to me every time i walk past.
every time i think of him it saves me a little bit. it clears the air.
there are people doing beautiful things in the world whom we will never hear about. there will never be any books written by them or about them. they are quiet laborers. servants. they are sidewalk scrubbers and free-clinic openers and feeders of the homeless and defenders of the poor. they are lovers of the Navajo rez and slum-dwellers in Cairo. they wash feet and pray for the ungrateful. they love Kurdish refugees. they live in red-light districts so they can have a place right in the heart of prostitution in Bangkok to invite people into safety. they live in the bush in Alaska where it is dark 7 months of the year and every child has been abused, every child has fetal-alcohol syndrome. they give up prestige and fancy college degrees to move to Yakima and care about the people there who have no education, no hope beyond wal-mart. they invite people out of gangs and give them a place to live in their own home. they buy houses for homeless street kids in pdx and live with them, putting all thoughts of personal safety on hold. they adopt five children who were abandoned in a hotel in Denver, even though they are in their 50s and have already raised 4 children of their own. they are everywhere. and we will never know them. we will never hear about them.
they are jack.
they are the Gospel.
