Tag Archives: homeless

So many need help

20 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by in Church, Theology

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I keep hearing how great our economy is.  But I keep running into more and more people who are struggling to survive.  I hear about how people have more money in their pockets, yet I find more people who have none.

Yesterday I was able to help a mother and her daughters have shelter for a night. They needed one night as they were working on their trailer to get it ready for tomorrow.  I don’t know all the details, but I know this was a family in need.  This was a time I could do something.

I also helped serve food to the homeless and poor in the nearby city.  While there, I was approached by two individuals for help.  One, a woman, was seeking transportation to Manhattan to “go home.”  She was homeless and said that she had no money.  There was no waiting until tomorrow – she had no where else to go.  What was I to do?  That kind of ticket is beyond my means.  I gave her directions to a local shelter and prayed with her.  I felt helpless.

The other gentleman approached me while he was in line getting food.  He seemed upset.  He inquired if I was the pastor at the church where the food was being given out.   I wasn’t, I told him.  He asked if the church would help him get a tent.  He was currently sleeping under a tarp in the woods and it was starting to get a bit cold at night.  While we talked, it seemed as though the church had let him down before – not necessarily this church, just the church in general.  The snark in his voice gave it away.  Would I be just another church person who would let him down?

Yesterday when I preached I talked about the child sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church.  I have struggled with this story all week-long.  So many victims.  So many abusers.  So much cover up.  And for what purpose?  To protect an institution?  When the truth comes out like it has, how has the institution been protected?  And why is the institution more important that young boys and girls?  This isn’t just a Catholic Church problem either.  It’s a human problem.

So many in need.  Yet I keep hearing about the great economy.  As if that will make it all better.  It won’t.  Don’t bother telling me about how great the economy is.  The economy of the people I have been with is crappy.  It’s poor.  It’s broken their trust.  It’s let them down.  It has left them homeless.

So many in need.  And yesterday I got to participate in a different economy – the economy of salvation.  I presided at our regular worship services and offered something with great savings – Jesus, the living bread of heaven.  I also had the privilege of offering communion to the poor and homeless before the meal they would eat.  Many took the bread and ate it.  I have no idea how many understood what they were doing.  But taking communion isn’t about understanding it – as if it’s really understandable when you get to the core of it.  Instead, this bread was life-giving bread.  It was a reminder of the promise of Jesus to be with us until the end of the age.  It was a reminder of the forgiveness of sin.  It was a reminder that Jesus offers true food that fills us beyond our stomachs.  It is food for the journey for these men and women – the journey of living on the streets.

This is the economy I know.  This economy far surpasses any human economy and what it has to offer.  In the economy of salvation, there are no recessions or depressions.  There is only an abundance of the Bread of Life.  So many in need.  And more than enough of Jesus to go around.  Better than any economy this world could ever offer.

What are the poor capable of?

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Humanity, Society

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So, if i asked you what a poor person was capable of, how would you answer?

Did your mind immediately go to a negative?  As in what crime is a poor person capable of?

Or did you start to think of all the possibilities that a poor person might have available to them to change their life?  Did you think of how lazy a poor person must be?

Or how about this – did you think about all the things that a poor person couldn’t possibly do because they are poor?

What are you basing your answer on?  Do you know anyone who is poor – or (gasp!) homeless?  By that I mean, do you know someone who is really poor or homeless by name and could easily have a conversation with them, or do on a regular basis?  As in you are essentially involved in their life and they are involved in yours?

Often we middle class folks don’t like to get involved with the poor or homeless – it messes up our lives and is messy.  Making eye contact or getting to know a person’s name might just mess up our schedules, or force us to see the humanity in someone else.  Or it might cost us something.

But here’s something another pastor told me yesterday that struck me – God has a way of messing our plans up and stirring the pot.  When we encounter the poor and homeless, it stirs the pot of comfort, of what is expected, and of what is considered normal.  Those that are different make the rest of us uncomfortable. But it is in that uncomfortableness that we have an opportunity to see why we are uncomfortable and we can grow from that.  And we can learn what it means to really help someone who is poor and homeless.

What does it mean to help someone like this – it means not making decisions for them, but to walk along side someone.  That’s no different from if someone is helping you – do you like to be told what to do?

What are the poor capable of?  Well, for one, they are capable of putting a mirror up to us so we can see the fear that we have – fear of being in their place and situation.  Secondly, they are capable of humanizing us again by giving us an opportunity to see the humanity in someone different from ourselves.

Poor people

20 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in Humanity, Society, Theology

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Poor people.

Do you get an image in your head when you read those words?  If you haven’t been poor, it is likely that you do.  Or if you don’t know someone who is poor – the same thing applies.

It’s probably the image of someone wearing ratty clothes, is disheveled and messy.

Poor people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and wearing all sorts of clothes.

Many people I know have a fear of approaching someone who is poor, or worse in their mind – homeless.

I think it’s the fear of what might happen – What might I lose or have taken away from me?

Maybe it’s a fear that I might have to do something – and I’m not sure what to do with poor people.  I’m busy after all doing stuff that’s important.

But have you ever spent time with a poor person?  Can you name a poor person that you know?  Do you know that person’s name?  How about a homeless person?  Know anyone by name?

It’s really, really easy to just drop a few dollars into someone’s hands and be off with your life thinking that you did something for someone.  But did you?  Or did you just buy off your feeling of guilt for not knowing what to do?  This isn’t something that is taught in school – how to handle an encounter with a poor or homeless person.

The first step in an encounter with a poor or homeless person – find out the person’s name.

Step two – listen to their story.

Step three – find out what the person really wants – it might not be what you expect.  But here’s the thing – it’s their life, not yours.

Step four – walk with the person and be supportive.  While you are doing that – draw out the value of the person you are walking with.  Everyone has value, find out what that value is and draw it out of them.  It’s like drawing life out of death.

A person’s name, being heard, expressing desires, and finding value is what being human is all about.  It’s what we are called to.