My church has been abuzz, of late, about “The Homeless Problem”. Many don’t want them hanging around our property. We feed them on Sunday mornings, and to many in our congregation that’s too much. Let’s keep them away the rest of the week! They scare us.
I’m committed to helping our homeless. I am a staunch supporter of our Sunday Breakfast Ministry. I prepare meals, at my own expense for up to 60 one Sunday each month. I’ve done it two Sundays a month when the need was present. I feel strongly about the rightness of this ministry, at almost all cost to all other ministry in our church. I feel so strongly about it that if the congregation ever decides to terminate the ministry, I may have to leave the congregation.
Why? Frankly, the homeless scare me, a little, too. I’m relatively shy, an introvert, I don’t talk easily with folks I don’t know and can’t relate to well. My ministry to these folks is two-fold. I cook their breakfast one Sunday a month. And I stand in the food line serving them and doing what comes natural to me… I pay them respect. Each scoop of eggs or ham or bacon or whatever comes with a “Good Morning, Sir! Thank you for joining us today!” Or, “Good Morning, Ma’am! It’s a pleasure to see you!” They’re human beings, and they deserve common courtesy as much as the VP of my division at work. PErhaps more.
Why am I so devoted to this ministry? Perhaps it’s because I come more and more to embrace the words of Peter:
9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,£ in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
I remember my bishop (RCC) referring to gays as “faggots”. I recall the numerous condemnations of me as a gay person put out by the Vatican. I hear the sneering attacks on my humanity by major, national evangelists… you know the ones. I have seen people turned away at churches, told they are not welcome, not wanted, unloved. I have seen those who have been graced by a gracious God, turn away those they disapprove of, in acts of utter UNgraciousness and even cruelty.
Once I wasn’t anything. But then I discovered that not only am I something very important, someONE very important, but I learned to accept that my God made me who I am, and I am Chosen, a royal priesthood, once I didn’t matter, but now I realize I AM part of a people, still scorned by the churches, I’ve received mercy at my loving Parent’s hand. I AM somebody.
How foolish, then, and how ungrateful, could I be as to turn away ANY of God’s people because they don’t conform to societal norms. Because, for whatever reason, they have found themselves destitute and bereft?
So, no, I don’t think we have a homeless problem at my church. We have, in our pastor’s words “a homeless situation”… more to the point, perhaps, we have a homeless opportunity.
An opportunity to share the love that has been given us unconditionally by our Parent with others who need that love just as much as we do – maybe, no PROBABLY, more than we do.