Advent on the Streets
Early on a rainy Sunday morning in Seattle's U-District, over a dozen homeless youth spill into the cozy church room from the hard, wet streets on which they survive. I drive down from the Skagit Valley to this weekly Bible study they call God Talk only once a month. So almost every time I sit down in the nook of couches and we go around saying our names, the faces are mostly new to me. They're sleepy, and guarded. But beneath their hoodies and oversized coats, beanies and bandanas, there are tender eyes that peek out, hoping to hear good news. Otherwise, they can leave for a smoke, or simply fall asleep.
As the leader for the morning, I've got a few minutes to give them reason to suspect staying awake and present is worth it. My joy is to show them (and myself, by seeing it in their eyes) that the story inside the Bible has much more to do with their bitter lives on the streets than existence inside a warm home and church.
"Most people would rather these young men rot in prison, never to be released." I told the group. "They are seen as the damned, and a prison with life sentence is where such people are sent when the public can't wait for them to die. Hell on earth."
The inmates probably believe God shares this view of them. But I tell the homeless youth about how the prisoners are feeling God's presence and love through the many visits of chaplains. This is the Christmas message, where the felt Presence of God enters a world of darkness, guilt, and captivity.
As the song goes, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining...till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.”
“How many of you feel like you're in hell right now?” I ask. “In a situation where there's no way out, and you feel it's your own fault?” Half the hands go up. “And you're wondering if God can break into where you're at...”
I see a young woman with a pink, fuzzy hat on under a gray hood, who has moved from the back steps to the front row of seats, sobbing. Her hand is raised, and her cheeks glow.
She whispers when I come sit at her feet that she is being forced to decide between the man she loves and the new baby inside her womb. After the group prays for her in closing and begs to disperse, she tells me and Mary Anne, another pastor there, the whole story.
Her name is Adriana. Her fiancee, Dominic, was living on the streets with her until they had a fight and took some time apart this fall. During that time, she got pregnant from another guy. When Dominic returned to repair the relationship, he was heartbroken and said he would not stay with her if she kept that child. It was not his own, but another man's. In prayer, we invited her to come into Jesus' presence, pour out her heart, and to listen.
With relief, she said smiled, as if she heard something very clear and surprising in her spirit: the soft, humble voice we name Jesus had assured her she should keep the baby, not dispose of it. But her smile quickly was pulled off by the other side of this trap: now she would be left alone by the man promised to marry her and care for her. Now she would be left on the streets alone.
“Jesus was born into a situation just like this,” I told Adriana. “Mary was a young teenager engaged to Joseph, but she got pregnant, and Joseph was not the father. He loved Mary, but decided to leave her and not disgrace her publicly.”
“Oh my God, that's exactly my situation!” she said with wide eyes as if stunned.
“But an angel spoke to Joseph in a dream, and told him that this child was of God, and that he should raise it as his own, be its father. And name him Jesus.”
“But Dominic will hate my child, every time he sees it. He'd leave me eventually,” she cried in panic, so wanting to believe this story could apply to their life today.
“Yeah, only God could talk to Joseph in a situation like that.”
Just then Dominic came back inside from smoking, and I decided to approach him on the steps where they had sat listening all morning. He was not hardened, but quite open about his sadness that Adriana had gotten pregnant with another guy. He clearly loved her. He didn't know what to do. I told him about Joseph, how normal it would be to leave, not face that pain and humiliation of being cuckholded.
He was amazed at the story's parallel to his own. "Damn...that's just like us. Where is that in the Bible?" He did not recognize it as the centerpiece narrative of the Christian scriptures and the Christmas holiday. And the fact that God himself needed to speak to Joseph seemed to touch Dominic—it took his pain and shame seriously. It was a heavy request, then--an honor--if God is asking.
Meekly, Dominic came over to sit by his sniffling fiancee on one of the couches, and my friend Mary Anne helped me pray with them for a minute. We laid hands on her belly, blessing the baby, and welcomed God's Presence. Soon she was no longer demanding he stay, but apologizing for hurting him. His blank face broke into tears at this, and she asked him to be the daddy with her. Even though he had a place to go, he had so far stayed on the streets just to be with her.
I told them that it still may be hard going: Mary and Joseph were homeless even when the baby was born. They had the baby in what might be the equivalent of a tool drawer in an abandoned auto shop, here in modern urban Seattle. They liked that.
Adriana wanted to then ask him to make up his mind right there, but Mary Anne and I suggested they take some time. Because only God could speak to Joseph's and Jeremiah's fearful hearts.
They thanked us, wiped their faces, and left unsure. But after lunch at a local restaurant, Mary Anne and another friend Sonja and I drove past the two on the sidewalk; they were walking happily side by side.
Please pray for this couple in the coming weeks.
As the season of Advent begins this Sunday, let these characters remind us how we need the Christmas story and hope. That God comes in the flesh to our places of darkness and hell, still: be it Guatemalan prisons or broken relationships with unplanned pregnancies. Let us rejoice, as Mary did in the Magnificat, that God chooses to enter the world in these messy stories in the lives of the poor.
May we believe, and--like the wise men, with all our comfort, wealth and wisdom--choose to kneel before these poor ones and adore the small and humble Presence of Jesus beside them. Who is growing, and will save even us.
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