For the past nine months, I had been volunteering with The Outdoor Church of Cambridge, a spiritual community for the homeless in the Boston area, which takes the church to people who either cannot or will not enter traditional churches. Each week, we met in a large public park and held an outdoor Eucharist, followed by a community lunch, provided by the “indoor” churches of the area. We would then journey through the streets of Cambridge on foot, offering lunch and Communion to whoever looked like they might need it.
Although I had been struck by Jesus’s solidarity with the poor and marginalized from the very first time I began to read the Bible for myself during high school, it had taken many years before I was able to muster the courage to respond to Jesus’s call for his followers to do likewise.
The first time I attended the Outdoor Church, I had to bite back tears as I stood around the rickety metal push-cart that held the simple altar linen and wooden cross, while the minister recited these words as part of the Eucharistic prayer: “Out of your desire to draw us into your infinite love, Jesus was born into the human family and remained with people who were outcast.”
For years, I had run from my sense of calling to solidarity with the marginalized, while verses like, “If you love me, feed my sheep” (John 21:17) and “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40), rang in my head. As I stood at the Outdoor Church that day, I knew I was where God had been calling me to be for quite sometime.
But it wasn’t until nine months later, in one particular encounter with a woman on the street, that I began to suspect that there might be more in store for me than lay ministry in this field.
On the afternoon of Nov. 20, we were making our rounds through Harvard Square as usual. A woman approached us as we were speaking to one of our “regulars” and we offered her a sandwich. She was totally blown away. “You’re giving these away? For free? Are you for real?!? Why are you doing this??” Two of the other volunteers explained that we were part of an outdoor church. She still kept asking why we would do such a thing – apparently the word “church” doesn’t automatically conjure up the image of four people wandering the streets with coolers full of sandwiches, cookies, and juice.
I was reminded of 1 Peter 13:15, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” I spoke up and said to her, “Because Jesus tells us to feed those who are hungry, and to give to those who are in need. That’s why we’re doing this.” She was completely amazed, utterly thankful, said she and her husband were “starving,” and called him over to get a sandwich from us as well.
And then she did something I didn’t expect. She asked me to place the necklace around her neck for her. As I did so, something stirred deep within me. Many months later, I realized that there had been a sacramental nature to that act. I would come to feel similar stirrings when I offered a chalice to someone at the Communion rail, saying, “The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”
I cannot overestimate the significance this one encounter had on my sense of calling. Seen in the larger context of my work with the Outdoor Church, it was the catalyst that moved my lay volunteerism into a life’s vocation. While teaching me valuable lessons about coordinating grassroots ministry, my time with the Outdoor Church also solidified my sense of what it means to be the church in the world and deepened my experience of Christ’s presence in my own life.
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