One
time Zach and I were at a gas station. A guy came up and asked for gas money.
He and a friend were trying to get somewhere, I can't remember. Zach gave the
guy $5. Next thing we know, the guy gets in a car with another guy and they drive
off laughing. Another time, I saw Zach give money to a guy on a street corner.
10 minutes later, we drove by the same corner and saw the guy sitting on the
same curb with a beer. Zach was robbed twice by a homeless man that he let
sleep in his house (for more about this story, visit the link at the bottom). I
can't help but ask myself how he continues to give when presented with these
disheartening results.
My
own stories have a slightly different overtone. One time, a homeless man
approached me in a Subway parking lot and asked if I would buy him a meal. I
said I was sorry that I couldn't help him, but the truth was that I just
couldn't be bothered at the moment. At other times, I have avoided people I
knew were living on the streets because I wanted to avoid having an
uncomfortable conversation with someone who might be a little bit crazy. I also
used to have a personal rule to never give money to the homeless, only food so
they could not buy beer or cigarettes.
So,
whose story is better?
Let
me present one last story. I was in Burger King with my family. While waiting
in line, a woman walked in with her young son. She was dressed somewhat provocatively
which automatically made me begin to draw a conclusion to the type of person
she might be. But she came in followed by a man in a wheelchair. Coincidently
they sat at the table next to ours and I began to realize what was happing at
their table. She had seen the man, who was homeless, out by the side of the
road. She invited him into the restaurant and not only bought him a hot meal
but also sat at the table and ate with him. They said a prayer for their food
and told each other stories about themselves just like they were new friends. I
couldn't believe it. I felt so ashamed because I realized that I would probably
never do something like that. And here was this woman, following one of God's
greatest commandments while teaching her son to do the same by example.
We
tend to think of the homeless as needy. Needy in a way that requires shelter,
food, warmth, or clothing. We avoid giving these things because we don't want
people to take advantage of us. We don't want to be duped. We feel that we
can't trust those we fear and don't understand. But, I'm coming to realize that
there is more to it than this. What if people are needy in a different way?
The
needy don't always need to be given things in a conventional sense. They need
to be shown God's love. That's what Jesus commands us to do, after all. Who
says that the right thing to do isn't to buy a homeless man a pack of
cigarettes? Who says you can't buy an alcoholic a beer when he or she is
shaking from pain and withdrawal? But let me take it even further than that.
There
is a relational component that gets lost when we encounter the homeless,
drifters, and others on the streets. Maybe a lot of it has to do with the
environment that we meet in: traffic intersections, underpasses, parking lots.
Or maybe, we just can't be bothered with that part of it. Sure, there is a
certain level of risk that you take when dealing with needy persons, but is
that risk worth following one of God's greatest commands. Maybe we need to
spend more time getting to know people. Talking to them, having lunch with
them, sharing our stories with them. That's all some people are looking for.
Someone to listen to them. Someone to actually care about them.
Taking chances is part of what makes love what
it is. Loving unconditionally means that you stop thinking about how the
outcome will affect you. For every time that my friend Zach has had a bad
experience, he has also seen someone blessed by his actions and therefore seen
God's love. That's what keeps him from giving up on people. The good that he
has done outweighs the deception that has been dealt to him and he doesn’t
regret a thing. That is one of the things that I admire about him. He is not
afraid to pay the price of making the world a little bit better. I have
realized how few people I have loved because I was afraid of the risks. And I'm
learning to stop being afraid.
I
recently had an interesting conversation with a man who was hitchhiking from
Naples, FL to New Orleans. He had been sleeping outside in the cold and had
been to several churches asking for help. This is where I met him. He told me
about how many pastors had sent him away, asked him for money, and in one case
had him arrested. Then he said, "If God is like that, then fuck God. I
don't even want to meet him." It makes me wonder how many people have a poor
impression of God because I couldn't be bothered.
Jesus
ate and drank with the people that others wanted nothing to do with. Then he
told us that whatever we do to the least of these, we also do to Him. He also
told us the story of the Good Samaritan. Something I seem to forget about that
story is how the man who was beaten feels at the end. He probably leaves this
story with a very different perspective on who God is and how we relate to each
other. I for one am trying not to make the same mistakes again.http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/jfre3/iama_guy_who_let_a_homeless_guy_stay_at_my/