Go to the crossroads, now!

What if it were to be taken literally?

Comment to Pope Francis Message for World Mission Day 2024.

Go now to the crossroads of the streets and everyone you find, call them to the wedding

There is a wedding feast we are all invited to, a day of love and gladness which colors the everydayness of life and offers a taste of joy that never ends and of full communion.

There is a feast and it is the king’s son getting married, a great movement of preparations and messengers being sent out to invite, to call the guests. Since these do not feel like attending or are too busy with daily occupations, here the invitation is extended to all. The first invitees are judged by the king to be unworthy… yet it was he himself who had chosen each one of them: it really seems that to be worthy or unworthy is not related to a moral judgment as much as it is to be understood in relation to the willingness or unwillingness to accept the king’s invitation.

A feast therefore triggers the movement: it asks the servants to go out and invite and the guests to rejoice in the invitation and participate.

The host of the banquet does not send the servants out in bulk to find the guests wherever they want. He gives them precise directions, there is especially one place where it is good, it is the king’s wish, that they look for the guests. There are the crossroads, the τὰς διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν in the Greek text, literally the “exits of the roads,” the points where roads leave the city to cross other roads for other directions, the furthest parts of an area: rather than crossroads, these are margins, borders, peripheries.

In any case, these are places of passage, on the borders of the real territory which see the comings and goings of many people starting from different origins and going in different directions. Places of exchange, of everyday life, places “off the beaten path” that imply the choice to go there on purpose.

Consequently the “everyone” the invitation is addressed to is better delineated: these are distant people who, engaged in their daily occupations, find themselves passing by the edges of the city or the king’s territory. It is precisely them whom one must go to, reach out to and invite.

In the Lucan version of the parable, the king adds other directions with respect to the invitees; he says to the servant, “Go out at once through the squares and streets of the city and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Luke 14:21). In short, both because of the location on the outskirts of the city or at any rate in the suburban hustle and bustle, and because of the personal characteristics of these invitees in the second line, one could very well comment that these are strange, out-of-series invitees, those to whom we would not send the personalized invitation…in the end those there would be no reason to invite.

What if these suggestions were to be taken literally?

That’s what we asked ourselves as we began our missionary adventure in Ethiopia, in the Apostolic Prefecture of Robe, a little less than five years ago.

At first totally unarmed, without possessing the local language(s) and with a superficial knowledge of the context, we realized that we could only offer our presence, our concrete going on the streets willing and available to meet people.

And so many friendships and opportunities arose to be able to get close and lend a hand.

A word that can be taken literally, a great provocation for the Church, for Christians, even for missionaries.

Living and working in a context of first proclamation, where the vast majority of the population is non-Christian, professing the Islamic religion, is a great opportunity to re-tune the goals and modalities of the proclamation of the Gospel today.

When Christian communities are numerous and well-articulated and structured, it is easy for all the efforts of pastoral agents to focus on this large catchment area. It is easy for them not to advance time or energy to go toward these “exits of the roads” that require effort, gratuitousness and whose results elude all parameters.

A great provocation to remember “that beyond” which is implicit and intrinsic to every evangelizing action, to continually look up beyond the boundaries of one’s own community of believers, to remember that the edges of the roads, the crossroads, are always there, waiting to be invited to the wedding.

This is a pastoral action that is neither programmed nor programmable, which we call “street ministry”: it implies putting oneself on the street to observe the context and facilitate/rouse encounters with people.

A pastoral in which it is not possible to announce the kerygma, in words and directly the mystery of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus for our salvation. Proclamation then, especially of the Father’s love for every creature, is translated into concrete gestures and actions that are difficult to plan for example through a pastoral plan. We could call this pastoral action made up of unpredictable punctual actions “atypical”, outside the pattern of usual parish pastorals and where the interlocutors do not flock to the temple because they are available and eager for the Christian mystery to be revealed to them.

The interlocutors become those we meet at street exits, at crossroads: the first proclamation will be that of God’s closeness and his Kingdom, and it will become concrete and tangible in the concrete becoming of neighbors on the part of the missionaries. The announcement that “the Kingdom of God is near, has come near to you” will resonate in the relationship that is created as in the concrete action of closeness that varies from encounter to encounter. Coming closer thus takes on a performative value (does what it says): the nearness of the Kingdom happens in the concrete becoming the neighbor of the one who goes out to invite to the banquet: The Kingdom of God becomes near in our making ourselves near. So, go. Go there now, out of the reassuring and known boundaries, to announce through your very going that the Kingdom of God has become close to us all.

Teresa Zullo

Look at the video testimony of Fr Emanuele (missionary of Villaregia Community in Robe), proposed during the Missionary Vigil of Ste Monique Parish in Ouagadougou, at the occasion of the World Mission Day 2024. Enjoy watching!

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