Jesus and Aliens

Our first day out serving coffee to unhoused folks in downtown Seattle. I was nervous. I hadn't done anything like this before.

The plan was simple; walk around pioneer square with a backpack full of hot coffee in a carafe, pump a few cups at a time, offer them to folks in passing. If they want to hang out and chat, great! If not, no worries; provide a warm cup and keep on moving.

I felt nervous because I didn't know if anyone would accept our offer, I didn't want to bother anyone, and I didn't want to offend by saying the wrong thing. Maybe someone would get angry, or be crazy on drugs, maybe even get violent! I figured if things got dicey, I could drop my cups and run. Looking back on the day, I feel foolish and naive for thinking all those things.

I think we encountered a couple dozen people. And every single person seemed genuinely touched and grateful for our offer. Some folks didn't want to talk, but we could tell the offer of hot coffee meant a lot. A couple folks were up for some conversation and we had a wonderful time connecting and listening to their stories.

One woman, let's call her Maggi, was thrilled to have some company for a bit and we talked for about 20 minutes. I think she assumed we were with a religious group that was serving food near by. So she started right in and said...

"Hey, I want to get your take on something I've been thinking about. You know how when Jesus came here, he looked like us? But he's God, right? So he could choose to look like anything. So he looked like us because he knew it would make us feel comfortable. Well, there's like tons of planets out there, right? And there's got to be loads of aliens on some of them, right? So, if Jesus went to visit those aliens on other planets... do you think he would look like human Jesus, or would he make himself look like the aliens? I think he'd choose to look like an alien cause otherwise he'd freak them out!"

I told Maggi I had never thought about anything like this before! But I agreed that her logic made sense to me. She replied, "Oh I'm so glad. I've been really wondering about this, and I was worried people might be offended." I assured her that I was not offended and, in fact, this was the most interesting conversation I had all week!

She eventually encouraged us to move on and to serve more coffee to others. She thanked us again for the coffee and said she hoped to see us again next week.