in the fury of the moment

putting faces on the Gospel message

So tonight I met some new neighbors. I had noticed people carrying in furniture the other day, and I caught a woman's eye and waved to her, and I wrote a quick note to myself "meet the new neighbors". On Sunday night I baked a loaf of strawberry bread, but after several unsuccessful delivery attempts that bread found a different home today.

Tonight was cookie-baking night (yes, I am a dork). I have a couple different people that I baked them for, but I made one batch with these new neighbors in mind. About 30 minutes ago, I walked two houses down with the aluminum foil-covered plate in hand. I had a flyer for my Thursday night Bible study in the other hand. I was a tiny bit nervous, but I was also looking forward to meeting this new little family that I thought I had seen moving in.

I rang the doorbell and heard scurrying around, and suddenly two faces appeared in the window of the front door. They were not the faces of cute little children, or even of a mother and father. They were the faces of two young men. The door opened and I was greeted by a man who was pulling a shirt over his head as he said hello. His hair was up in a ponytail, and he quickly put his hand out and laughed as he said hello again. Actually it was more like a giggle.

I asked if they had just moved in, and two of the men said in unison, "we're performers!" I really had no idea at this point what I had walked into, but I smiled and held out the plate of cookies. I introduced myself and told them I live two doors down from them, and that I wanted to welcome them to the neighborhood. I learned their names, and that they are just staying in the house while they perform in a production at the local theater.

I met two other performers, and they invited me to sit down and chat. I sat down and stayed for a few minutes but I felt incredibly uncomfortable the whole time. I noticed one of the guys looking at the flyer I had handed him along with the cookies, and - to my shame - I mumbled something about having a meeting at my house every week. He asked what it was about, and I said a Bible study, and he didn't really ask any more questions after that. I found out the performers were from New York (City), and "oh my God" they were dying to be in this little country town ... they asked me, "how do you survive????" The conversation was full of laughs (more nervous than actual happy kind of laughter) and talk about New York, and eventually I got up and said I needed to get back.

They shook my hand again and thanked me and promised to have me over for dinner sometime. I left and walked quickly back to my house, fighting the urge to run. It wasn't until I got home and closed my door safely behind me that I felt it. I realized that it was no accident that I met those performers. It is so easy to go up to people who look and talk and maybe even think like me, and to talk to them about a God that they may already believe in. It's probably also easier and a whole lot neater to give medicine to someone who's not really all that sick. But I'm pretty sure that's not what the Gospel, at its core, is about. Jesus said that it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. It's not the good, clean people who need to be washed and cleansed ... it's the dirty ones that you don't really want to go near. I don't ever remember reading anything in the Bible about how neat and tidy and easy it is to really share the Gospel with those who need it. If anything, we are told that it will be difficult and challenging, and maybe more than a little bit uncomfortable. I have held back from really describing too much about the men in that house tonight, because I don't know what is true and what is just my condemning heart making a judgement that I have no business making. But, if what I think is the case is really the case, then I have even more of a responsibility to get to know these theatrical fellas, and to love them. It may have started with some cookies (chocolate chip with M&M's, to be precise) but I have a feeling it might end with me facing head-on some ugly things about myself and also learning to love a little more like Christ and less like Krista.

posted by Krista @ 8:58 PM