Context Is God

Interesting experience on the subway this morning on the way to work. I got on and sat down near a door. There was a 30-something black man standing in the doorway area, to my immediate right. Kind of diminutive, casually dressed, sweats and a wind breaker, maybe. I thought at first that he was talking to someone, but after I sat down, I realized that he was actually preaching the Gospel. Well, not the Gospel per se, he was going on about how we should trust in the Lord Jesus, etc. How if we did so, our families would benefit, our husbands and wives, if they were sick in the hospital, would get cured... etc. Y'know, the usual stuff.

I didn't feel like moving away though. I sat there and listened. It was something to listen to anyway. But I kept my eyes on the floor in front of me; didn't want to risk eye contact out of fear that he might single me out for personal attention. However, at one part I almost raised my hand to make a point. He was saying how God had never turned his back on us, and I thought "What about the Flood? That wasn't very nice. Sure Noah and his family made out okay, but everyone else was pretty much screwed." But I maintained my floor vigil. Wasn't the time or place to be engaging in scriptural debate.

I noticed, however, that he seemed to be dwelling on the theme of turning to God in order to get sick family members cured. "Our wives, our husbands..." he kept saying. Made me wonder if perhaps he had lost someone, and maybe that's what set him off on this subway sermonizing. It wasn't like he was outwardly crazy, not like one of those nutty-eyed sidewalk preachers, the one's that stand on soapboxes and use megaphones. No, this guy seemed releatively normal... except for the fact that he was preaching loudly to morning commuters on the Danforth subway line. But it wasn't doom and destruction, it was "turn to Jesus and he will make your life better." Very here and now. Positive. Faith.

What struck me though, was that the only thing that defined this guy as a "nut", was the context that he was in. Take him out of the Thursday morning subway and plunk him down behind a Sunday morning pulpit... and suddenly he becomes a rather effective, and likely respectable preacher. And, really, where is he more needed? Literally preaching to the pew-assed converted on Sunday? Or out there among the rush hour zombies? Gives the phrase "mass transit" a whole new meaning.

But I guess that's par for the course: behaviours that are totally acceptable in one context are completely inappropriate in another. Like the other day when I was peeing in my office...

Oh but that's a story for another time.