Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing

I am way behind in blogging.  Time for a little catch-up.

Last week, Kirstin Paisley, a member of Trinity who works with our homeless ministry was in our Thursday night Catechumenate class, where they study the upcoming Gospel reading.  They looked at the text from Luke’s 4th chapter, where Jesus goes into the synagogue, opens the scroll from Isaiah and reads, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”   Jesus then rolls up the scroll and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Friday night Kirstin welcomed 120 homeless people into the Great Hall, helped feed them dinner and gave them a warm, safe place to sleep.  Throughout the night, that last sentence from Jesus kept resonating for her.   As she was eating and resting in safe community she realized that it indeed is being fulfilled.  She wrote a beautiful reflection that’s posted on Trinity’s Crosstalk Blog.  I commend the entire piece.  Here’s an excerpt:

This is easy.  It’s joyful and loving and wonderful.  This is just fun.  And sometimes it breaks my heart.

Wednesday at breakfast, I was passing out napkins at the front of the line.  I wasn’t even fully awake yet.  I was rolling spoons inside of napkins, offering them, and saying hi, or asking how someone slept; that sort of thing.  Without the slightest bit of consciousness of how my behavior might affect anybody.

I gave someone a spoon and a napkin.  I have no idea what I said to him.  He asked me, “Why are you always so nice to us?”

I answered with the first thing that came to my head:  “Because we’re all human beings.  And because you guys deserve it.”  I was thinking, “My God, what did you expect me to be?”

That’s what it does to someone’s soul when everywhere they go, they’re trespassing.

The homeless people that we host come here because they know that they can.  They know that we will welcome them.  We offer them food, company, community.  We invite them into church—we explicitly do not compel them.  They are free to be themselves here.  We laugh with them.  We listen to them.  We love them.  And they love us.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

On these cold, wet nights, “inbreaking” is too weak a word.  Time and time and time again, we witness the reign of God crashing into the space we walk around in.  There is so much love here.