The place seemed tired and the people tattered. As I stepped gingerly over the threshold of the former Chelsea hotel in downtown Chicago, the place did not exactly present an elegant scene. There was a handful of young people lingering around the gray-lit lobby, and they appeared to me more like high-schoolers in detention rather than guests of the Christian shelter and ministry I thought I was visiting.
The place had first sparked my interest because of its heart for hospitality, for sharing life and home together, which I hope to emulate in my own future ministry. I came envisioning hostels and accents and coffee conversations. But as my friends and I toured through the dust-traced rooms, I realized this was not the sparkling ideal I had set up in my mind.
As my gaze sauntered down the hallways, I collected pieces of texture: broken terra cotta stranded on the windowsills, a tantrum of scattered paint over the walls, rust stains that trickled down from ceiling seams. The people seemed rough, too. They weren’t the captivating mystics I so often muse about, you know, the rootless independents who embark on spiritual journeys through Europe, making their living through art and the pack on their back. But these people, for the most part, were unapologetically average. They wore indie band tee-shirts, pushed through the dinner line in wheelchairs, displayed a wide array of inked arms and pierced faces, and laughed indiscreetly through bad teeth. In a sense they intimidated me because I was unsure of how to relate to them.
A man with glasses as big as vintage records and a beard like scribbling asked if we would like to stay for dinner, so we accepted the invitation and shuffled to the back of the long line. I engaged in a few conversations as we entered the dining area, the whole time feeling about as inconspicuous as a red piano key.
But then a brilliant display of color distracted my eye. There, blooming out of the white, cracked wall, striking in contrast, were hundreds of handmade crosses. Each cross as different as the soul who made it; each one the story of a life of faith. There were crosses of every detail and design: painted crosses, decadent in color, cardboard crosses, rough and brown, simple silver crosses, traditional wooden crosses, crosses made of sequins, twigs, beaded wire, newspaper clippings. I itched for my camera. The image shed a new light on the place for me, and I tucked it away, leaving me in a quiet awe.
We ate with the ministry’s discipleship group in a small side room, and as they invited me into their home, welcomed me to their table, and ushered me into their lives, their faith, I found, was real. Real to the raw. And in it, we found an easy fellowship. Rich, our friend with dark dreadlocks and carpenter hands, told me in his down-to-earth way of his hope to become ordained this year. He is praying about returning to Brazil, where he grew up, to share Christ with his father. Sadie, a philosophy major, shared about her recent trip to Palestine and the lives of quiet injustice she witnessed there that continue to shape her. Rob, who has one blue eye and one patch, grinned at me and invited me to come back and visit anytime. He is homeless and shines with the joy of the Lord. I felt that our little table hosted a lot of vision. And as I was sitting there, amongst such rich stories of the faith, one thought kept returning to me: this is the church. All of us love Christ. All of us want to bring His presence into our tangled, tainted world.
Then I thought of the crosses and realized what a striking visual this is. This is the church. It is built of people of all varieties of grace. There is no mold for the saints. The saints are bohemian artists, celibate nuns, suburban soccer moms, charismatic youth, gray-haired elders, third world orphans, seminary graduates, the least, the last, the prodigals, and the prostitutes. As Christ saves them, all are His. We are His church and we are His children. The crosses and the lives that crafted them, in their colorful array of differences, each stake their faith in the same raw red of redemption that stretches through us all.
Just as each cross on the wall expresses a different perception of the One Lord, so we all bear a unique image of the same Savior. God chooses to reveal to each of His children different attributes of His character, in order to shape us according to His individual design. Some see Him as the Lion of Judah: fierce and noble and strong. Others know Him as the Shepherd, gently and lovingly guiding His own. Maybe Jesus is the Potter to the paint people, the Bread of Life to the cardboard people, the Bridegroom to the sequin people. He is all these things, and something vibrant and dynamic happens when the paint people and the cardboard people and the sequin people come together to worship at the foot of the cross.
As we come, from all points on the spectrum of souls, from every tribe, tongue and nation, we find a common ground in faith. And as we come, bringing together our glorious variety of grace, we can communally reflect the fullness of Who He Is. In light of this, the same scene I had once deemed so unimpressionable claimed a new significance. Under this bright mural of faith, those I had considered strangers became brothers, those I thought dissimilar became sisters, and this myriad of people found beauty in coming together as the living, thriving Body of Christ.
