Tonight I bought dinner for a homeless man. I have never done that before. I think I was still coasting on the unexpected testimony I had on Sunday (I went to pick up a lady for church and her adult son suddenly asked me, “What can you tell me about Jesus that can help me?” I was shocked and told him that God is good and a bit more that I hope was Spirit-led, because I am not as articulate as I should be). So anyway, when this other guy walked down the median at Hanley and Manchester holding a cardboard sign telling us he was down on his luck, I immediately thought of what Peter would do (tell him to jump in the car and take him to dinner) and that I couldn’t do that with a (sick) baby in the car. But it’s good to have a brother who picks up hitchhikers and takes homeless guys out to dinner and shares the gospel with them, because it forces you to remember that Jesus told us to take care of the down-and-out and that every one of those hurting people has a story (for this guy, I’m pretty sure it was mental illness). I was running early to pick Derek up from the metro stop, so I turned my car around and headed up to McDonalds to get this guy some dinner. (My semiconscious thought was that dinner is safer than money because it would just go to drugs or booze…but how often, Derek reminded me later, is that an excuse to not do more?) Coming back down to the intersection, the man was no longer there, but I prayed that he’d be walking in the direction that I had to turn, and he was. I pulled off, rolled down my window, and told him that I’d seen his sign and was bringing him dinner. He said, “God bless you,” and I said, “God bless you!” And that was all. Maybe he pitched the bag as soon as I was out of sight (someone did that to Peter on one of his first forays into Matthew 25 living), or maybe he was just a charlatan, but isn’t it better to be taken in than to be calloused?
I’m telling this not to brag about my great deed for the day, because it’s actually not so great to buy a stranger a $4 meal, but to ask myself (and my gentle readers) why I’ve never done this before. What holds me back from looking with compassion on the down-and-out? And even if I’ve been compassionate in the past, why haven’t I acted compassionately before? It’s a sticky area, and I want to be a good steward of the resources with which God has blessed our little family. Homelessness and mental illness are a far cry from my sheltered life, so I don’t know enough to know if I helped or enabled with my action. I’ve never before taken the time to figure that out. I guess I’m just hoping that these recent two out-of-comfort-zone experiences were Holy Spirit-prompted and that whatever little thing I do to one of the least of these, I’m doing for Jesus. Hmmm.