.........Continued from part three.
He continued according to plan,
traveled to town after town, village after
village, preaching God's
kingdom, spreading the Message. The Twelve were
with him. There were also some
women in their company who had been healed
of various evil afflictions and
illnesses: Mary, the one called Magdalene, from
whom seven demons had gone out;
Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's manager;
and Susanna--along with many
others who used their considerable means to
provide for the company. As
they went from town to town, a lot of people joined
in and traveled along…..(Luk
8:1-4 MSG)
If you are living in a
city I bet you know how busy main streets or roads are, especially during
working hours. From the early morning rush to lunch breaks and then the work exit times, human traffic is always tremendously high and can sometimes
be overwhelming on these city roads. A typical main street in a city can hold
almost every conceivable activity man engages in; from the coffee shop to the
fast food restaurant beside it to the saloon opposite them which charge
exorbitantly for every service. As you move
along the street you can count some schools, one of which your children might
be attending, banking halls, shopping malls, car sales mart, gas stations,
hotels and restaurants, hospitals, the fire station and the list goes on. You
also walk past the burger man on the street corner, a public phone booth that
may or may not be working, a homeless man ranting in his drunken stupor and the
newspaper vendor who you might have made friends with.
What does a street mean to
you? Many of us have interesting stories about happenings we have witnessed on
the street. You remember the fateful day when a 4 year old child stood right in
the middle of a busy street and the look of horror on every face as a vehicle
almost hit her. Or it may be that favorite fast food shop on the corner where
you like having lunch and relaxing after some stressful time at work. For as
many people we have on earth, we might get as much divergent perspective on
what a street means. One thing is clear, streets and roads serve beyond the
purpose of facilitating transport and movement.
Obviously City streets at
the time Jesus lived didn’t look like ours but it served the same purpose.
Houses lined those streets too, women display their wares on the street side, money
changers shout on the top of their voices to attract customers, and fishermen
brought their catch to the fish market on the main street for sales and so on.
Whether then or now, streets serve as points of CONVERGENCE. These points of
convergence is where our impact as Christians should be felt most, it is where
we light, salt and leaven the whole world. Men and women from all walks of life
interact one way or the other on the corridors of these streets. Jesus met more
people on the city streets than in the synagogue [read church]. No wonder he
didn’t revolve his ministry around the so called religious people but went onto
the streets to preach, heal the sick and raise the dead. As he travelled along
these streets he was able to fulfill his ministry and right on the streets
people who might have never entered the synagogue joined him. It was on the
street that the woman with the issue of blood met him and got her healing [she
was deemed as unclean so could not have gone into the synagogue] and he was not
in the synagogue when he calmed the raging storm.
Like I pointed out
earlier, streets serve as ‘convergence zones’. I have been talking of physical
literal streets and their place in our daily lives. However, let me at this
juncture state that in the context of our discourse, streets can also refer to
those points and or places of convergence in various areas of our life. Thus,
your office where you meet with fellow workers is a convergence point; the
hospital where you meet other patients, doctors, nurses and paramedics is also
a convergence. That Board meeting where brainstorming sessions are carried out
on a weekly basis in your organization is a convergence point; it is your
street at that point in time. The city park, golf clubs, shopping malls,
Parents Teachers forum in schools, amusement parks, local churches, dance
classes, Houses of parliament, manufacturing factories, police stations and
every conceivable place and time of convergence serve as our streets. It is on
these streets that our light should shine the most.
The problem we have on our
hands, as I have stated in an earlier chapter is that our concept of church is
deficient and as long as we keep confining the power of
the Church within the four walls of our local church buildings, we will
never be able to effectively fulfill our mandate of making disciples of all
nations. As much as we have tried to bring the people of the world into our
local churches it doesn’t seem we are making much progress [it is estimated
that Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth]. So now we know what is on
the main street; the world we have been sent to.
...to be continued.
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