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This past Friday I had the privilege of attending a ministry to feed the homeless in Dallas. To tell you the truth I wasn’t very excited about going. I had class all day long, and Emily and I have hardly seen each other at all this week.
Thankfully, however, my good friend Jonas, (the guy who invited me to go), called at the last minute to find out if I was still in. There was no way I was going to turn him down.
Handing out food and clothing to homeless people can teach you a lot about yourself. It was forecasted to be 38 degrees that night, and most people in Dallas have more roof over their heads than they can possibly use. Yet, here was a winding line of folks who had no where to go.
It reminded me that our Savior had no home either.
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” – Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58
Now I haven’t completely figured out how I feel about the whole situation, because to a certain degree some of the people on the streets choose to be there. But there was one man that made me think. He said that we who have food, shelter, and clothing – “we don’t want to share.” He asked why each person has a car, yet it often sits parked; we have more clothes than we could ever wear, and more money than we need.
I was slightly offended at this, because here I was trying to help him out, and he was accusing me of being greedy. Then he said this, “You really don’t want to help us. The people you saw here tonight are not the ones who are really in need. It is the ones who can’t walk here, the ones who stink, and the crazy ones who are really in need.”
He was right. I’m too afraid to walk the streets at night and get close to the really lost ones. I’m barely comfortable to stand in this abandoned parking lot and pass out drinks to people who might give me a disease with their foul breath. And I do it mainly because I know in one more hour I’m going to get in the back of that F150 and go home to my wife.
I don’t think I’m a coward. I think it takes discipline, resolve, and initiative to make it in this world. However I do believe that I’m spoiled. My pastor said something is past Sunday that struck me. Reading out of Ezekiel, he said that the great sin of Sodom was not its perversion, fornication, or adultery, rather scripture says this:
“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” – Ezekiel 16:49
I hope that one day the Lord will be able to say to me, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in” (Matt. 25:35). And though as an American I may be arrogant and overfed, I pray that I do not go unconcerned.
Standing there in the cold had a way of humbling me. Needless to say, I did not sleep well last night.