Easter worship this morning at First Presbyterian in Asheville was pretty spectacular. The music, the liturgy, the message and the visual pageantry combined to create an inspiring celebration of God’s love for all of us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. But it was my second Easter Sunday worship…last Wednesday was the first.

The Haywood Street Congregation meets every Wednesday right after lunch. Starting at about 10:30 all kinds of people start showing up in the fellowship hall to talk and visit and get in line with the other 300 or so people who know from experience that the meal will be exceptional. By all kinds of people I mean men, women, children, young, old, white, black, Latino, gay, straight, poor, middle class, wealthy, homeless, barely housed, nicely housed, multiple houses, addicts, recovering addicts, “respectable” people, “scary” people, happy, sad, desperate, bored, ordinary and extraordinary people. After visiting and eating we have church upstairs in the sanctuary. And since we wouldn’t meet again until after Easter Sunday, we celebrated Easter Sunday on Wednesday.
Not very long after we settle into our pews and Rev. Brian Combs, the pastor, is leading us through the Easter liturgy, angry shouts start pouring through the open stained glass windows. “You f****** SOB! I am going to f*** you up, so f****** bad…” And on it goes, louder and closer as the entire congregation sits frozen in fear and embarrassment. I am sitting on the outside aisle, barely resisting the urge to shut the windows, to shut out the anger and pain. Several folks jump up, including Rev. Shannon Spencer, and go outside to help. As the shouting outside continues, Brian says, “You know this kind of thing happens at Haywood Street. Life here can be pretty raw.” Now the outside voices are getting calmer. “The guy you hear out there is John. John has had a hard week. He was denied housing. John struggles with alcoholism and mental illness. And that’s OK.” Now we hear police sirens getting closer. Brian tosses his bulletin to the floor. “What we planned in the bulletin is no longer what’s most important. Let’s talk about how to be a Christian with what just happened.” So people share about feeling afraid and helpless and guilty and responsible and hopeful. And outside we hear a policeman using his policeman’s voice to assess the situation. Brian and others offer prayers. Shannon and the others who went outside to help return to their seats. It seems the disruption has ended. But then Easter really starts to happen.
John, the central player in the disruption, comes to the sanctuary doors. He hesitates. Brian says, “Hi John. Welcome. It’s good to see you here. Come on in.” John shuffles down the isle, head down. He’s embarrassed and unsure. Brian steps up to John and gives him a big, longer-than-usual bear hug. Unanticipated gasps and yelps escape from the throats of observers. Eyes fill with tears. John takes a seat up front. The Easter service continues with more spectacular liturgy: a thorough discussion of the gospel text, Smokey’s baptism with gallons of water showered on all, special music, and the Lord’s Supper.  We walk out into the bright sunshine, soggy, spent and smiling…having witnessed resurrection.

I do not like the bloody and ghastly theology of substitutionary atonement…that God, the grim judge, sacrifices his son as a cosmic payment for our sins. One day the church will repent of this very poor and (ironically) violent theology. Jesus saves me when I see him, living a loving and compassionate life, and then being tortured and murdered by the civil and religious authorities. When I see such innocence and love suffering…whether it is Jesus long ago or Jesus today in the suffering of innocents everywhere…it breaks my heart. It creates a new possibility. Within that brokenness are the seeds of my salvation and the possibility that Jesus’ love and compassion will be expressed in my life. Resurrection.

Easter is an occasion for great celebration. May we experience it early and often

The 5th Wed of the month are usually the most unusual, we’ve found.  With disability checks and food stamps having to stretch further, in addition to freezing nights and days of rain…Haywood St becomes, many have said, the only place folks can come and be welcomed even with all the frustration and worry they carry.  As we continue to be a community where no one is asked to “check their baggage at the door” before entering, we are called into the ministry of accompaniment.  Jesus recognized the healing power of walking alongside, a gentle hand on a shoulder, a listening ear…and at Haywood St – that’s the model we struggle, stumble, and joyfully try to follow.

Once again, over 300 folks gathered for a hot bowl of soup and scrumptious grilled cheese sandwiches.  One fellow who walked in near the end of the meal shared that he doesn’t “do grilled cheese” yet after one bite…he came back 4 times!  Yep, 4 times! 
And as you can imagine, folks are lining up earlier and earlier to get into our clothing closet.  We are so fortunate for the donations we receive and for the volunteers who spend hours organizing and hanging them.  If anyone is feeling called to welcome folks into our closet at 10:00am – just let me know.  I’m told the items we most need are:
coats and sweatshirts (hoods are a plus)
men’s jeans
socks
thermal underwear
shoes/boots
Blankets, tents, sleeping bags, tarps

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it would be like to worship God through an Elvis song – or with a pastor wearing an Elvis collar; if you’ve ever wanted to attend a worship service where the congregation acts out the Scripture; or if you’ve ever wanted to share Eucharist with others yearning to strip off the masks and facades culture encourages us to wear… join us at Haywood St.  There is always room at the Table for one more.

For this ministry – and for you – we praise God. 

Rev. Shannon Spencer
Volunteer Coordinator at Haywood Street

Said a Hobo, just off an eastbound rail, “There are no homeless Jews. Crisscrossing in every direction this country pushes freight; the trains have revealed it all.  The urine stained shelters, the asphalt bridge overpasses, the gutter trench campsites… the depots and dives may morph, but the Christians don’t.  Christian churches in Christian towns full of the Christian poor.”

God’s chosen extend hospitality, take with biblical seriousness the widows and orphans and strangers among them.  The displaced of today, just as the Israelites were in the Diaspora of slavery in Egypt yesterday.  Because Yahweh liberated a homeless nation, followers too should offer an exodus to homeless brethren.

For a religion that claims a homeless Savior, who spent his temporal days with the scorned, who said, “blessed are the poor,” we Jesus folks spin off onto negligible biblical side roads.  Referenced in the thousands between Genesis and Revelation- far more than prayer, sex, or sitting in the pews- God doesn’t speak an inspired Word in muted grays, with ambiguous opaqueness.  No, the text, and our discipleship response, is literally spelled out in black and white.

As one Christian living on the street prophesied, “With two hundred chronically homeless brothers and sisters in Asheville, and two hundred area Christian churches… I can do even that math.”

Click here to visit GRACE website.

NOTE:  Participants are asked to write their honest and anonymous response on a piece of paper and leave on the lunch table or put in the offering basket.  Answers below are typed exactly as they appear on the paper.
“What does memorial day mean to me.  It means that our soliders fought for our freedom.”

“A time to remember those no longer with us.  For me it’s the memories of family gathering will all the family.  A time to get together with friends and family and enjoy a 3 day weekend.”

“Memorial Day means to me to remember our vets that lost family and lives”

“Freedom!”

“Freedom – N Thanks To those who gave their Lives For us to have It.”

“Beening Free For my Life and before God
Jesus Whelp!”

“ A Day to observe vertan’s”

“Proud of my dad, military Police in Army Airforce base in England WWII, Althoug he was only 115 Lbs. Got Bombed Many Times, but came home afterward to hall all of us kids.”

“To me it is a day we should set aside for our love ounes who has passed on be for us, to honer the memory of Love ones, past on.”

“Soldiers & Vertierns Fight in War For Our Nation.”

“Over 200 years of service to our nation by many millions of great Americans”

“To remember all the fallen soldiers who fought for our freedom.”

“God Bless All the Men and Women that has Made Are Life’s Free”

NOTE: Participants are asked to write their honest and anonymous response on a piece of paper and leave on the lunch table or put in the offering basket. Answers below are typed exactly as they appear on the paper.

“My parents so that I could find out my heritage and what runs in my family.”

“Jesus And My Father in Haven”

“My Father because my Father got killed when I was real young I have not had a father feger in my life and I did not no how to be a father to my son. But we are still close but I wish he would have been here to teach me how to be a man. I really miss him very much.”

“It would be my Grate grandfather, and I would learn all that I can from him.”

“Tyler Perry”

“Jesus. I no he is not dead but he is alive to me because he is my saviour. He is the son of the Living God he is my best friend.”

“Taj Mahal”

“Jesus”

“Macheal Jackson – Because he was a famous person, who could dance and sing. Helped a lot of people around the world. He was sweet and nice person. Would love to meet him.”

“Teddy Pendergrass, and marvin gale they was famous. Could sing very well.”

“I would like to meet my real dad. he was my role modle.”

“Jesus, Lord of Lords, King of Kings of Course and Why Simply to say thanks as I Bow at his feet.”

“Alan Jackson. I’m a country music fan I sing kareoka at different places, and I sing his songs a lot I just love his music.”

“My Grandmother is Heaven I wood love to see her a gain.”

“God. I love Him.”

“Myself – why not?”

“Jesus. To Blessed Everlasting.”

“Mary, mother of Jesus because I need her advice on how to let my son go his own way using his own judgement and ideas. I raised him in Christ, taught him right from wrong and gave him plenty of love and protection. Now I need to let go of the apron strings and I need help.”

I was struggling with a heavy container of silverware, preparing for another Wednesday meal at Haywood Street, when the hand-made sign caught my eye. HOMELESS PLEASE HELP. My first thoughts were of sympathy for the person who must have accidentally left the one thing that might get them noticed on the side of the road. I decided to leave it hanging on the wall beneath the collection of crosses, in hopes that the owner would reclaim it at the next meal.

The next week, waiting in the dining room for a meeting, I noticed the sign still hanging in the same place. Not knowing to whom it belonged, I began speculating about the story attached to that piece of cardboard. Is the owner still looking for it, disappointed that his chance of buying a meal or a cup of coffee is lost? Is it easy enough to find a marker and an old box to make another sign? Was the sign left behind for another person to use? Or, was it simply forgotten? I clung to this last thought as I stared at the nearly camouflaged sign tucked into a corner of the wall…a wall covered in crosses and art. That wall is a symbol of hope at Haywood Street. The crosses are obvious symbols of forgiveness and unconditional love. The paintings (created by Haywood Street friends during Art Day) represent the gifts and talents that lie just below the surface of stained, tattered clothes and the dark circles of exhaustion. They represent moments of peace, refuge, and fellowship where the struggles of the day and the looming night are temporarily forgotten.

Did someone simply forget their troubles as they gathered around the table, filling their stomachs and their souls with nourishment? Is it possible that the moments spent sharing a meal and connecting with friends (old or new) relieve folks of their burdens, even if only for an hour? I’d like to think that whoever walked into our dining room with that plea for help found what he was looking for and no longer needed to cry out. Someone reached out to him, perhaps, and allowed him to leave the church with a sense of hope.

Wren
Haywood Street Volunteer