The company that owned the three-story building that became our church forsook it for a mere $25,000. It snuggles in a rundown section of our city a half-dozen blocks from the local mission to the homeless. For years, boards covered the windows in its upper stories. It comes as no surprise then when a homeless man or woman veers into our building as we gather for worship on Sunday mornings or evenings or Wednesday nights.
Dave first walked in during a Wednesday night a year and a half ago. Appearance and odor announced his position on society's ladder. Do you indict me for my superficiality? You would be right to do so. God indicts me. "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory...but if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors" (James 2:1, 9).
I've learned this lesson before. One morning eighteen years ago, as I served as an elder in my church in Utah, I noticed out the window a couple walking up the walk to our door. "Oh, my," though I. He stood a towering six foot four with hair that would have made Gene Simmons proud and and topped with a Berkley beret. She perked along beside him on pink stilettos, a Barbie-doll wife coifed with tumbling gold locks and bedecked with size-4 clothes that matched her petite frame. Immediately God skewered my heart for my godless assessment of exteriors. I met them at the door and welcomed them to our fellowship. The giant, Robyn, and his bride, Dena, became some of our closest friends during our time along the Wasatch Front.
Back to Dave. Arriving after our service had commenced, he took a seat near the back of the room where he fidgeted about and never seemed to focus on the pastor's points. On Wednesday nights, we have a small break between our formal service and when we reconvene to pray about issues affecting us. During that break Dave expressed a need for a few dollars to get something to eat and to purchase a bus pass so that he could start looking for work. The pastor, not wanting to abet a drug or alcohol habit, asked to keep his wallet while Dave went and got his food and his pass and then returned, and our pastor told him he would be happy to take him wherever he needed to go after the service if he would be willing to stay during our time of prayer. Dave said he needed to be on his way and left.
To this day, the pastor still has his wallet.
Two other times, though, over the past eighteen months, Dave came back to our church. He reran his story like a Disneyland automaton. One time I offered to take him to get his pass or some food and he became angry that I wouldn't trust him by just giving him money. He left.
Two Wednedays ago, Dave returned again. He walked into Wednesday night's service, sat down for five minutes, restless the entire time, and left. He didn't even wait for the break or to talk to anyone.
The following Monday I was by myself down at the church sweeping out a room we were renovating. I had the door open to the street, enjoying the cool breeze of the fall day. In walked Dave, and out came the same tattered story. He asked if he could help me for the nine dollars he needed for the bus pass to get to his job at Whataburger. While the story remained a ruse, his willingness to labor instead of just shilling for a few dollars encouraged my soul. I enlisted his help.
When it came time to pay him and not wanting him to squander his keep on alcohol or drugs, I offered to take him to get the bus pass. "I see where this is going," he huffed. Realizing I would not pay him unless I could take him, he relented and got into my car. As we drove to where bus passes are sold, he again became frustrated that I wouldn't just give him the money and asked to be dropped off near some apartments. Dave did not want a bus pass. Nor did he want food; he told me he had food at home. Here I wanted to help a man who wanted no help.
What did Dave want, I do not know, but as I got the few dollars out of my wallet that he had earned, he crystalized in my mind a distinction among America's homeless, a distinction our PC culture refuses to address. Dave, like so many others, seeks to leech off of the productive belly of America. Dave has no desire to find a real job with 9-to-5 responsibilities. He feeds at the mission and mooches a few dollars more here and there for -- what? Porn? Drugs? Maddog? Weed?
We used to call such folks vagrants and vagabonds, tramps and hobos. Such a lifestyle was seen as a blight to a town, and such parasites were driven out of town. News exposes have shown that many of the guys on street corners are running a business, a business taking your money. Today we embrace these folks as "homeless." We pretend they have no choice. We flagellate ourselves and lament, "Our society has done this to these poor souls!" What a sham. Let us call bums "bums."
Before you stone me as a granited-hearted Scrooge, I do understand that there are folks who have tragically lost everything they have and that passionately want to work hard to again become part of the commonwealth of man. I do believe there are folks who long to be part of a family but through mental deficiency or physical malady have been cast off. We, individually (not through government mandate), have a responsibility to those who have suffered loss or have been ostracized. They
can be productive members of society or vital members of a family.
But those are not the folks of which I speak. Dave and his ilk have no desire for either. Paul commanded the church at Thessalonica, a church dealing with vagrancy, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat." When we give such leeches free bread, we foster their vagabondage, we abet their sloth.
My heart aches for Dave. What makes him different from me? Why do I choose to labor and he to panhandle? Regardless, he has a choice, and he has chosen his path just as I have a choice each day to trod the path I have chosen. For me to encourage him in his lifestyle would be as sinful as looking down my nose in prejudice for his filthy clothing or foul smell. I must deal with my prejudicial sin before a holy God (and it is a stench in His nostrils), but I cannot condone Dave's sin as I repent my own.
As he got out of my car, I asked Dave not to come back to our church unless he wanted our help to become a productive part of our city or unless he wanted to get his life straigtened out before God. If he wanted to travel a new path, there would be a dozen families willing to come along side and help him to that end. I would like to hope I would be near the front of the line.
Until then, there would be no more bus passes for Dave.
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