Poverty of Love
Fifteen of us packed into two vehicles and set off for inner-city Portland. We ranged in age from four years to more than 50 years—male and female, Americans, two Germans, and an Azerbaijanian. There was so much nervous excitement you could feel it in the air and see it in one another's eyes. We were about to step outside the comfort and shelter of our middle-class suburban “bubble.”
We headed for the headquarters of Bridgetown Ministries. As we opened the side door and began walking down the dimly lit stairs, we could smell the delicious aroma of fried rice. We could already hear the bustle from the dozens of others who had come to volunteer. We split up—some of us sorting through used clothes, others filling coffee and juice containers, others filling canisters of warm water that would be used to wash people's feet.
When everything was gathered and ready to go, the group assembled in an abandoned sanctuary. A young, casually dressed man stood in front of the group and spoke. “This is the body of Christ, working together as God intended—Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Evangelical Free, Catholics, and even some Quakers leaving their differences at the door and loving people because people matter. This is not about carving notches on your spiritual belt for walking people through the ‘four spiritual laws'; that doesn't impress me. What will impress me is if you go home tonight and know the name and story of someone you served.”
Under the Burnside Bridge
After he spoke, we prayed and then headed to the Burnside Bridge to meet up with folks who were anticipating our arrival. Over the next two-and-a-half hours we washed people's hair, gave haircuts, washed feet, served a meal, and handed out clothes, blankets, jackets, socks, and sack lunches. We also engaged in conversations and listened to people's stories. When you're living on the streets, you have a lot of stories to tell and very few people who will listen. We met fascinating people—incredibly intelligent and hard-working people, kind and generous people, desperate and lonely people.
One young man, who went by the name “Jersey” because “it was more unique than his first name,” was visiting Oregon from the East Coast. It was a vacation of sorts before he turned himself in to serve time for some kind of crime he'd committed. He'd only been here for two weeks but found the people of Portland to be so gracious, that upon his release he hoped to come back to Portland to find a job in the heating and air-conditioning field.
My three children (ages four, five, and six) captured the heart of a very sweet woman named Victoria. Victoria loved being a mother (she has a grown son). She dreams of gaining computer skills and working in an office. Her face is gracious and her smile reflects a kind-hearted soul. She prayed a beautiful, desperate prayer for help and showered my children with compliments and thankfulness for sharing a meal with her and praying for her.
We also met Jason, a twenty-something who traveled with two friends and survived on the streets by panhandling and playing the guitar in Pioneer Square. This source of income was very unpredictable and some days they would play all day for only a small handful of change, forcing them to find more creative (and more painful) ways of getting money. For example, they would allow passersby to throw quarters as hard as they wanted at their faces. Jason said that he and his friends often walk away with a whole bag of quarters and with their whole faces covered with welts from this. People would also pay to see Jason pull a condom through his nose and out of his mouth, which he so thoughtfully and generously demonstrated for me. (It seemed as though he was testing me to see how uncomfortable I would get with his colorful language and unusual antics. I got the feeling that he was used to being shunned.)
Steven is an older man—smart, witty, and full of stories. He speaks a little bit of everything: English, H3ish, German, French, and Russian. When my friend introduced herself and told him she was from Azerbaijan, he impressed us all by knowing exactly where in the world that country is located. He's the kind of guy you would want on your Trivial Pursuit team. He'd been to 26 countries because his brother-in-law was a travel agent and would call him with last-minute vacation packages that were dirt cheap. He once went on a ten-day adventure in Peru for $300. Three of us stood for more than an hour listening to him retell his adventures and asking him questions.
The impact on us
The high school students who come with me to the Burnside Bridge each month are enthralled and committed. They talk the entire way home about the people they met and the stereotypes that were destroyed. They remember peoples' names and look for those people when they come back. Ministry that involves developing relationships with people and meeting their physical needs—as opposed to handing out tracts and keeping a safe distance—taps into their values and vision of what the church ought to be doing. They sense that God is present and at work in them and through them.
People from our community are hearing our stories through the grapevine. Folks who aren't able or aren't ready to go to Burnside are supporting us in the ways they can. There is a pile of donated items in the corner of my office that grows larger by the week. People bring backpacks, blankets, sleeping bags, new socks, winter hats and cans of green beans. In this way, all kinds of people are drawn into the ministry—some who give, some who pray, and some who serve.
Last week, Bridgetown Ministries handed out 120 sleeping bags and when all the sleeping bags were gone, there were still people standing in line. The need is so great and yet the needs that I see are only the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming nature of the world's needs too often paralyzes the church—and so we do nothing. We see that a meal, a haircut, and a warm sleeping bag are really not changing any of the underlying causes of peoples' hardships—and so we do nothing. When we act this way we reduce poverty to something that can only be measured in dollars and we objectify people by reducing them to a problem. What we fail to realize is that our own apathy is the most severe form of poverty of all, a poverty of love. When Jesus said, “love your neighbor” (Mark 12:31), “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), and “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40), he presumed that we would love (Webster's says this is a verb), regardless of the effectiveness or fiscal responsibility. He just said, “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12), plain and simple. A friend who loves gives what he or she can even if it doesn't solve everything. A friend who loves recognizes the value and dignity of conversation. A friend who loves gives without a second thought about whether he or she will receive in return.
It would be a stretch to say that these folks have become our friends. Before this trip, most in our group hadn't served at the Burnside Bridge before. But it's not a stretch to say that we all learned something that night and hope to return so that these folks do become our friends. We learned that many of society's stereotypes of homeless people are just dead wrong. We learned that a listening ear is often the best gift we can give another person. We learned that the gospel can be demonstrated just as powerfully as it can be proclaimed. Many of the folks we met that night have heard about the good news of Jesus much more often than they have ever seen it lived out. And that's exactly what I love about joining up with Bridgetown Ministries: It gives us suburbanites a chance to demonstrate the love, acceptance, and relational generosity of the God who created each and every one of us.
