Encounters from the School of Mercy
I went to the street believing that I was bringing the Gospel.
I carried Scripture.
I carried prayer.
I carried words about mercy, hope, salvation, and the love of Christ.
But after standing beside neighbors whose lives had been wounded by poverty, homelessness, loneliness, rejection, displacement, addiction, illness, and loss, I began to understand something I could never have learned from books alone:
I was not only bringing the Gospel to the street.
The street was teaching the Gospel to me.
The street did not give me another Scripture. It taught me to read the Scripture already in my hands without the protection of distance.
I had read,
“I was an hungred…”
Then hunger stood before me.
I had read,
“I was a stranger…”
Then the stranger had a face.
I had read the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Then one day there was simply another human being before me, and the question was no longer: “Do I understand the parable?”
It became:
“Which person in the parable am I becoming?”
That is what the street teaches.
The street turns categories into faces.
Homeless becomes a neighbor.
Poor becomes a neighbor.
Addicted becomes a neighbor.
Stranger becomes a neighbor.
From a distance, suffering can remain an issue.
Closer, it becomes a story.
Closer still, it becomes a person.
Proximity restores the face.
And when the face returns, conscience awakens.
The street therefore asks questions no theological examination ever asked me:
Did you see?
Did you stop?
Did you listen?
Did you remember the name?
Did you return?
Did you become a neighbor?
The Good Samaritan did not merely feel compassion.
His compassion changed his direction.
His eyes saw.
His conscience responded.
His feet crossed the road.
His hands entered the wound.
His resources opened.
His journey made room for another person's journey.
And perhaps this is one of the simplest definitions of mercy I have learned:
Mercy is allowing another person's suffering to change our direction.
But the street taught me something deeper.
The wounded person is not always the only person who needs rescue. The person lying beside the road may need his body rescued.
The person passing by may need his conscience rescued.
Every time suffering becomes ordinary to us, something within us is in danger. Every time another human being becomes merely a category, something within us is being lost.
The Samaritan crossed the road toward the wounded man.
But in a profound sense, he also crossed the road back toward his own humanity.
This changed how I understood ministry.
The neighbor is not my project.
The neighbor is not my statistic.
The neighbor is not evidence of my compassion.
The neighbor is a human being before God. And sometimes the person I thought I came to teach becomes my teacher.
The hungry teach me whether generosity has reached my hands.
The lonely teach me whether love has time.
The rejected teach me whether dignity depends upon social approval. The person who cannot repay me teaches me whether my generosity expected a return. And the wounded teach my theology whether it knows how to kneel.
That is why I call the street the School of Mercy.
No one graduates from compassion.
Indeed, one of the deepest prayers of street ministry must remain:
Lord, never allow what I see every day to become invisible to me.
Do not let the tent become scenery.
Do not let the shopping cart become street furniture.
Do not let the person beneath the blanket become part of the sidewalk. Do not let another human being's cry become background noise. Keep my eyes capable of seeing.
Keep my conscience capable of being disturbed.
Keep my feet capable of changing direction.
For perhaps one of the greatest dangers of street ministry is not simply discovering how much suffering exists.
It is becoming accustomed to it.
And so the street has changed the question I ask about the Gospel.
I no longer ask only:
“How can I bring the Gospel to the street?”
I must also ask:
“What does the Gospel become when it reaches the street?”
Does it become bread?
Does it become listening?
Does it become welcome?
Does it become protection?
Does it become friendship?
Does it become someone remembering a name?
Does it become someone returning tomorrow?
Does it become a human presence quietly saying:
“Your life matters enough for me to stop”?
But there is an even deeper question: “What does the street reveal about the Gospel that has reached me?”
For I went believing that I was bringing the lesson.
But the street became the classroom.
I went believing that I was the minister.
But the neighbor became the teacher.
I went believing that mercy was something I would give.
But mercy began examining me.
And I discovered that street ministry is not merely about what happens to the person before me.
It is also about who I am becoming in the presence of that person.
The Gospel must eventually reach the feet.
It must cross the road.
It must kneel.
It must listen.
It must remain.
It must love.
The street does not merely receive our ministry.
The street examines it.
The neighbor does not merely receive the lesson.
The neighbor becomes the teacher.
Conscience becomes the student.
Mercy becomes the examination.
And after the sermons have been preached, the Scriptures expounded, and the prayers spoken, the School of Mercy leaves me with one question:
When another human being stood before me, did the Gospel make me a neighbor?
That is what the street taught me.
And I am still learning.
Emmanuel. Amen.
Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
September 1, 2026
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