Liturgy of the Streets

Streets have their own charm else how could a movement started by a carpenter and a few fishermen gain so prominence. Jesus and his disciples were the children of streets who bore with them the stench of vulnerabilities than the fragrance of complacency. Streets reveal the naked truth of life. Horace Mann, an American educational reformer opines “If you wish to write well, study the life about you, life in the public streets.” Jesus and thereafter his disciples drenched the streets they travelled with their sweat and blood and therefore Street is the place where the Church took birth. Street is the domain of contingencies and therefore when Jesus said “For where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among you” (St. Matthew 18:20) it was an invitation to experience the uncertainties of the Streets.

The Church is not an establishment where we gather together but wherever we gather together in the name of Christ, a Church is born - even Street for that matter. To gather together in the name of Christ is to gather together for the cause of justice.  Streets become the last and the most powerful arena for the people in the struggle for justice. Innumerable instances ratify this argument. Recently four Justices of the Supreme Court of India, in a paradigmatic act of rebellion, resorted to the streets to air their grievances against the Chief Justice of India.  Narmada Bachao Andolan under the aegis of Medha Patkar has been on the streets for more than 30 years protesting for their right to live. Sreejith, adorned the street of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala for more than 765 days demanding justice for his younger brother, who was killed in police custody.

On the other hand, streets are also the spheres where democracy relegates to mobocracy. Indian streets are turning out to be haunting nightmares. As Prof Shah Alam Khan (AIIMS New Delhi) remarks “India is changing. It sure is; a map where lines are drawn with sledge hammers and daggers; a topography described with stones and boulders, solid boulders which not only kill but also crush a face beyond recognition; a  map with red water bodies and grey skies; a bloody map of Lynchdia with a bloodless heart and a soulless body.”   

We often say that ‘Children are the future of the Church’. Have we ever thought where our children are today? India has the world’s largest population of Street children. Seek the streets to find the future of the church being trampled. If not on these Streets where else should the Church minister? Professor Dr. George Zachariah opines “The mission of the Church is not to protect or defend our heritage, liturgy, confessional doctrines, ecclesiastical offices or even the Bible. Rather, we are called to midwife the process of making these means of grace and the rich resources of our faith to incarnate in the street by exposing them to the challenges in the street….When the Church happens in the street, the street becomes an Epiphanic space.”

Orthodox theological concept – ‘Liturgy after Liturgy’ could offer us a credible navigating principle in this regard. Orthodox theology proposes that Liturgy is not something that which is confined to the four walls of the Church but is a continuing process which extends beyond those walls. New Valamo Consultation was a consultation of Orthodox theologians held in Finland in 1977. The locus of the concerns was the Eucharistic Ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church. This consultation had robust discussions on the concept of ‘Liturgy after Liturgy’ which could succinctly be summarized as – “In each culture the Eucharistic dynamics lead into a ‘liturgy after the Liturgy’, i.e. a liturgical use of the material world, a transformation of human association in society into koinonia (fellowship), of consumerism into an ascetic attitude towards creation and the restoration of human dignity.” It simply means that the Church should expand its purview of public witnessing.

Lent is a time we pray for the wisdom to transform ourselves into discerning Christian public witness. This lent may we take a walk on the streets engaging with the stark and naked realities of the world and life; who knows in the due course of our journey we might encounter Christ enthusiastically fulfilling the works of his Abba.

I conclude with a piece from Rabindranath Tagore’s classic work, Gitanjali;

“Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads!

Whom does thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?

Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path maker is breaking stones.

He is with them in the sun and the shower and his garment is covered with dusk.

Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil.

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found?

Our master himself had joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation: he is bound with us all forever.

Count of thy meditation and leave aside thy flowers and incense!

What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained.

Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.”

Let us pray

God of uncertainties, may we encounter the vulnerabilities of life on the streets so as to know its true worth. For Christ’s sake we pray. Amen

Prayers

Dn. Basil Paul