Open Air: The Day Of Reckoning

The drunken man on my right is laughing. He’s quite close and at first I think he’s been listening in to my conversation with this earnest young man on my left. But no, he’s looking past me. I glance over my shoulder. His companion (likewise inebriated) is lying on the floor, propped up on one elbow. He watches the contents of his fallen can of lager spreading slowly across the pavement with a bemused expression on his face.

Is he hurt? No, I don’t think so. Should I go and help him? Hmm, no, I’ll stay here with this young man and answer another of his questions. He’s not a time-waster, not someone trying it on for his own amusement. He deserves all of my attention.

He’s squat and stocky, with the beginnings of a beard on his somewhat swarthy face. He wears a baggy blue hoodie over light grey cargo pants. He’s come away from a Christian background, he says, but now he wants to know more. He starts with the Trinity and then we move on to many other matters. How agreeable it is, when someone wants enlightenment rather than an argument! When we’re done, he shakes my hand and takes away a copy of “Ultimate Questions” and a couple of other booklets.

I survey the scene. From an enormous poster plastered on the side of Debenhams-as-was, the Kardashian Clan look down upon us like some latter-day goddesses of Lips, Hips, Tucks and Nips. What are they advertising, I wonder? Whatever it is, I don’t want it.

The sun comes out from behind light cloud cover and illuminates Janette in front of Zambrero. Her tracts seem to be going well. Stephen pauses as a tram screeches around the bend in front of us. The sun retires again, but two gents stop to ask me for tracts: one tall in dark blue, one short in light grey, both wearing black baseball caps.

“That’s an old-fashioned wheelchair,” I observe to myself, as the lady in it asks the well-built, grey-bearded bloke behind her to stop for a minute. She listens to Stephen and I offer her a tract and then retreat - but she calls me back for a conversation. Her escort focuses on Stephen as our talk moves from Christianity to the state of our nation and then to education and then back to the bible. I know it’s about time for Stephen’s first stint to end, but we’re flexible: he can keep going while I get to grips with these topics.

And it’s worthwhile: she takes a copy of “Can We Be Good Without God” as she goes. “Just time to pass a tract to that man on the bollard!” I think, as Stephen moves towards his conclusion. Alas, I’m caught up in conversation again, this time with a believer, who tells me that he likes to come out and listen to us if he’s free at lunchtime.

How tall he is! He towers over me, bearded and bespectacled, in a blue anorak over a black suit and white shirt. As we speak, a gent in an olive-green waterproof and a curious turquoise helmet of some sort films us from a few yards away. As the conversation concludes, a sharp-faced fellow claps his hands, applauding Stephen’s oratory for a moment, and then he dashes away into the passing throng.

Now it’s my turn; and the sun is out, so I take off my jacket to address my theme in shirt sleeves. The amplified plunk-plunketty-plunk of yet another amateurish busker drifts over from somewhere in the Gardens; trams squeal, and folk from every race and place under the sun stroll by. Many of them are actually tourists today, wheeling enormous suitcases along and looking at their phones to find out where they are.

It’s a good place to preach, when all is said and done.

After a little light humour at the expense of the Kardashians, I take the moral temperature of the nation. A teenager hacked to death by two twelve-year-olds with a machete? I don’t need to add anything to that…

A man in a blue puffer jacket stops and stares, a heavy pack on his back and a bedroll under his arm. But when I begin to speak of the cure for the ills of our land, he shrugs his shoulders and walks away. The Bread of Life is not to his taste, and the Water of Life is not that for which he thirsts.

Watching the GoPro recording a few days later, I note that I’m less conversational and more combative than usual. I suppose it’s a question of “reading the room”, as they say - or in this case, of observing the crowd with care. Stephen’s tracts are going out at speed, anyway, and I trust that it’s the same with Janette and Peter - though the latter is hidden away over by the planters at the moment. As I pause for a tram to pass, the tall bloke from the bollard comes to shake my hand and to thank me as he departs. An old lady leaning on a shopping trolley encourages me as she passes.

The wind blows, the sun comes and goes, and the afternoon speeds by. By the time I get to the text on our poster (Romans 14.12), the crowd has thinned out, somewhat, for some unknown reason. Not to worry - Ethan arrives, and cheers me up. He’s all in blue today, with what looks suspiciously like a brand new pair of trainers on his feet. Time I had some new ones of my own, perhaps?

He gets straight to work as a police van passes; they don’t bother to check up on what we’re doing. “Why did Christ come into this world?” is the question that begins the last part of the afternoon.

But here are another two men who have imbibed not wisely but too well. They’re both of a type: lean, a little mean-looking, caps tight on their heads, coats zipped up, narrow, black trackie bottoms, the beginnings of scrubby beards… The one in the blue coat points to our poster. “Wass tha’ far?”

I tell him to step back and I will explain it to him. He does so, but his friend is annoyed, turning restlessly, hands in pockets, a picture of impatience. “Ah don’ wan’ yer essplain!" 

“Hang on sir, this gentleman here has asked me to…”

“Ah nozz no’ real, ah don’ wan’…” And on he babbles.

“Well, you go away then!” And off he goes, but he returns, babbling again, then goes again… His friend says: “Wi don’ like lars! Yer okay, though!” And he comes and pats me on the arm and shakes my hand and departs - none the wiser about our text, alas.

“As I was saying…” An older man with a great, big, grey beard stands and listens as he raises a can to his lips. He refuses Stephen’s offer of a tract, but puts his bag down and listens while he drinks deeply, leaning on a lamppost. However, when we get to “The Day of Reckoning”, he picks up his bag again and shuffles slowly away. It seems to be an altogether unpopular idea, these days…

Nevertheless, it’s been a profitable afternoon, I’d say. We pack up and pray, but Janette seems to have slipped away somewhere, so it’s just the four of us off to the Arndale for refreshments, after we’ve prayed.

It’s been encouraging, recently, to have folk assuring me that they pray for us on a regular basis. We very much appreciate their efforts, unseen and unheeded by others though they may be. What do we read in Revelation 5.8? “… golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” That gives us just a faint inkling of how valuable they really are. We thank you for them.

Please continue to pray, for one or more of those mentioned above, and for the folk that Peter encountered: C. J. (witnessing to the homeless), who would value our prayers for his ministry; N. from Leicester, just moved to Manchester; and an atheist who proved to be open to the gospel.

Join us next Wednesday if you can, at the usual time and place - God willing, of course.

Every blessing!