Riding with the Driver

So I was walking through Hillsboro Village yesterday morning - it was early and my car was being fixed at the local repair shop - and I was walking out of the art gallery at the end of the street when I was the recipient of some free-wheeling evangelism.

I say "free-wheeling" because said evangelizer was in motion, leaning out of a car window as it went through the heart of the Village block there. Also free-wheeling because it was sort of "gamble" evangelism, guerrilla evangelism. Shot-in-the-dark evangelism.

Here's how it went down.

I own a lot of t-shirts, and (as many of you know) a goodly percentage of these are Superman t-shirts. So I had one on yesterday, and its hard to miss - big red "S" and all. And as I walked out of the gallery this dude leaned out of the car window and shouted - near as I can tell - "Hey, bud, even Superman needs Jesus!"

As is my wont, I reacted as I usually do. I raised my fist triumphantly and shouted back, "Amen."

But then I was given to ponder, as his car continued to slowly pass me by. I noticed the "Got Jesus?" bumper sticker on the back of the car, and noted as well his goatee and the foreign make of his sedan. Who was I dealing with, exactly? A born-again Emerger? A backsliding Baptist who feels guilty he got drunk last Friday and is trying to do penance? What assumptions was he making about me, anyway? What assumptions did I make about him?

I wonder sometimes what sort of image I present to the world. What does the casual observer see when their eyes behold me. I honestly have no idea. In my life I have run a curious gamut: atheist, to eastern-spiritualist, to christo-pacifist, to evangelical protestant, to somewhat-traditional-somewhat-crypto-somewhat-militant-catholic. No matter where I've been, or thought, and no matter where I've landed, I guarantee you there's always somebody somewhere still thinks my ass needs to be saved.

Not that I mind that. Somebody somewhere is likely right, at any given moment.

But what about this moment, yesterday? This drive-by proselytizer, this missionary in a Mazda? The interaction was so brief, I still don't know exactly what was happening. Was it merely an affirmation of the lordship of Christ, even over cartoon characters? I can get behind that (just please let's don't sing about it, please). Was it some sort of Isaiah gig, denying the reality of the false powers and the idols of the world (as represented by that trademarked and TIME/Warner besmirched "S" I was sporting on my pecks)? I can get behind that, too.

Was it a gesture, an assumption, that I was lost? Needed to hear the Good News? Perhaps. But how effective is such a shouted, probably mis-heard soundbite over traffic noise and a million other distractions? Wouldn't it have been more classy to stop the car, in a sort of reverse-Eunuch-on-the-road deal, and actually get to know me for a minute, find out where the scripture was sticking in my craw, if at all?

I think of the old story the radio evangelist Bob George tells, about how he would grill his young son after school, whenever the boy mentioned a new friend. "Did you tell him about Jesus?" George relates this story to illustrate the danger of evangelism-by-the-numbers, of when "spreading the good news" feels more like the point-spread in a football bet. (He doesn't ask his boy that question anymore.)

I guess what I'm saying, both to that long-gone guy in the car and now to all of you, is this: Yes, when the time comes, even the stones will shout. The cars will shout, too, of their own Accord (sorry), and proclaim the real Order of the world and who is in charge. Everything will. Every tongue confessing, every knee bowing.

But we don't live in that time, yet. Here and now, it is not enough to shout a platitude. Here and now, the way forward is the same as its been for the last two-thousand years: the conversation on Mars Hill, the feet dusty from the road (not the accelerator), one cloak, no pouch. Slow time and needy interactions - mutually needy. Not the kind of "I've got the answer you've got the need" jazz that so often gets passed off as compassionate Christian "being in the world but not of it."

I hope, when my moments come - to witness, to "spread the Good News," to even (God forbid) join the ranks of the martyrs - I hope I'm moving slow, and doing a lot of listening, and hearing where this soul is coming from before I start trying to act all high and mighty about where its going. I hope.

And I read somewhere that hope might not be in vain - so maybe there's hope for me. And for the guy in the car.

That'd be super.