Tag Archives: homeless

Gift from a homeless man

Christmas blessing from a homeless man

This year, my family and I started off our Christmas morning the way we always do: we go around to the homeless in our neighborhood, greet them warmly and wish them Merry Christmas, offer them a simple gift… water bottle, extra socks, nothing fancy. Every year, we are blown away by the joy and gratitude, but this time something special happened, and I want to tell you about it.

Why we do it

Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, and we give gifts out of a literal take on the scripture that says, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did for me.” Caring for each other, and especially for the poor, is very near to the heart of the Christian message and is mentioned multiple times throughout the bible, but especially in the New Testament:

Talk about homeless people in our society is usually about “solving the homeless problem”. Some of this conversation is conducted from the compassionate perspective of seeing everyone safe and warm at night, but that is the minority. More at issue, most of the time, is the fact that our society’s nice, clean, and well-dressed don’t like homeless people. You know the arguments: They smell bad. They are a nuisance. They are mentally ill, possibly criminals, potentially violent. Like all stereotypes, there may be elements of truth in all of that, but they loom much larger in imagination than they do in actual fact, and meanwhile much good is left undone out of fear.

How we do it

I’m a parent too. I’m not about putting my family in danger any more than you are. It’s not that hard to be sensible. We’re in a group. We’re in public places in broad daylight. We’re using common sense about whom to approach and praying over the whole process. We’re not “solving homelessness” and we’re not trying to. Yes, we also donate to causes that provide real structural support to the homeless, but Christmas morning isn’t about that.

In the hundreds of conversations I have had with homeless people, the #1 need that emerges again and again is simply to have their humanity acknowledged. The late Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel, told a story about when he was homeless (due to alcoholism), and a woman once scolded her daughter away from approaching him, saying, “We don’t even look at that! That is just filth over there! That’s all that is.”

Contrast to the time when my daughter was younger, maybe 5, and she and I were speaking to a homeless man who seemed sad. She spontaneously hugged him, and he immediately began to weep.  The grateful look of shock and relief on his face is one I will never forget. We can’t always give to the homeless, we can’t always hug them, but a look in the eye and a sincere smile do 90% of the job and cost us nothing.

What we receive

Many times, the homeless that we visit on Christmas morning want to give us a gift in return. One year, when a lady found out that my daughter loves to read, she dug out a well-traveled copy of her favorite book, Black Beauty, and joyfully presented it to her. This year, we received a work of art traced through with scriptural wisdom: the word “full” forming a bridge across faith, hope, and love, making them come “full” circle. Our “word(s)” becoming a double-edged “(s)word”. The young man who had drawn it sat with us, patiently, excitedly, teasing out, teaching. We left the encounter in a glow of spiritual discovery as profound as after any sermon.

So things to remember: first, spiritual wisdom is often conveyed in the humblest vessel. It is still very much true today that God chooses the so-called “weak” and “foolish” in order to shame the worldly “wise”. Second, the Prayer of Saint Francis says it best, “It is in giving that we receive.” In what we call “generosity”, we are often the ones who gain the most.

The cost of serving Christ

Smelly clothes and the cost of serving Christ

Shane Claiborne knows about the cost of serving Christ. Twenty years ago, as a college student in Philadelphia, he learned that a group of homeless families, sheltering inside an abandoned Catholic cathedral, were 48 hours from eviction. Thinking of Matthew 25:40, he rallied to action, plastering his campus with fliers proclaiming, “Jesus is being kicked out of the church!” So was born a movement called The Simple Way; the entire trajectory of his life was set by that initial act of obedience.

Glyn Franks knows about the cost of serving Christ too. Founder of “Second Chances Bread of Life”, he was served with eviction papers for attracting homeless with his food distribution.

If we are to be true followers of Christ, it may not cost us our whole lives (as it did for Shane), it may not cost us our homes (as it may for Glyn), but it is going to cost us something. We will have to give up things we would rather keep. We will have to draw near to people we would rather not. We will have a cross, in whatever form it takes, that we must daily take up and bear.

There is going to be a cost

A pastor friend likes to pose the question, “If you were on trial as a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” The truth is, my life, in most ways, looks an awful lot like the lives of my unbelieving friends. Yet if Christ paid a price— the ultimate price— for his message, then why should I expect that I can have everything the world values and still consider myself as a bearer of that same message?

In fact, in Luke 14, Christ urges would-be followers to first sit down and decide if they are up for it, with the rather extreme summary, “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” If this standard is to be read as a literal, material one, then I don’t know any true disciples of Christ. No one I know has taken a vow of poverty.

Speaking personally, I have made my peace with this verse by an attitude of heart surrender, that nothing I have is withheld from God, no area of my life is “off-limits” if God were to call me to use it, or even sacrifice it, for his purposes. The time that I spend writing this blog is actually part of that; carving out that time is a sacrifice of sleep or family time or both that does not come cheap. It is an ongoing effort for me, and a regular area of prayer, to review my life and look for new areas that God is calling into submission.

Going among the undesirables

As is abundantly illustrated by the story of Glyn Frank’s eviction proceedings, there is no love lost towards the homeless in our society. Nobody liked homeless people back in biblical times either; that is not a new problem. The book of James makes the point specifically, right down to the smelly clothes:

Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in…

And yet, says the scripture, we are to welcome the beggar just as graciously as the rich man, if not more so. This is far from a theoretical question. My church is in an urban area where we are privileged to have homeless attendees with some regularity. Three weeks ago the police showed up mid-service on a Sunday morning, having received a complaint that we were busing homeless people in to attend. We hadn’t been, but what if we were? Surely it should not be a criminal matter to show mercy and compassion toward the down-and-out. 

But the challenge of overcoming the distaste we have for certain of our fellow men goes so much deeper than that. Our aversion toward the homeless pales in comparison to our outright rancor toward those with differing belief systems and behaviors, and in my personal experience, this is just as true among Christians as anyone.  The passion we feel is a good thing, but it can be wrongly applied.

I once met a missionary in Mexico who gave me a catalog of his life-long prejudice against Mexicans. But living and working among them, those prejudices had fallen away, one by one, until none were left. Much great work of the kingdom was the final result, but the first step was to overcome his natural instincts, and to go serve those he scorned. In the words of Christ, “Go ye and do likewise.”

No matter who it is that ignites your passions— be it liberals or conservatives, feminists or fundamentalists— drawing near to them, serving them, and showing love to them is the only Christ-honoring solution.