A couple weeks ago, I saw 3 homeless men in one day. That's some sort of record where I live because usually I don't see 2 homeless people a year. They hadn't bathed or shaven in a while; their clothes were covered in dust and dried sweat. Their eyes were dull, squinting through the 90 degree heat at nothing in particular, not even looking in the windows of the cars that passed them by. It was embarrassing for me to see them, embarrassing because I felt discomforted for them and embarrassing because I didn't want to think about them. I didn't want them to be there because of the guilty feeling that slipped through my gut.
Conservatively, I'd tell you that the guys I saw lived in predicaments of their own making. I'd also say, "Why encourage such a lifestyle by giving to them? They are not productive citizens - they live on the underbelly of society like parasites. Why can't they get a job?" This helps ease my guilt. And it makes me feel good about myself: I have a forty hour a week job for the summer and I'm going to college on scholarship next fall with two declared majors and a minor. I turn into my ambitious, driven, ruthless self. I become this person when I see people drop out of high school, or fail a class. "They have their own sorry selves to blame."
When I first saw this painting by Pat Mikrut, I didn't notice the writing on the back wall. It says "Jesus Saves" backwards. At first, it made me angry, as if the artist was making a case that Christianity, that Jesus, didn't work. But then, I wondered whether or not the artist was saying something else, criticizing the bloody hypocritical Christians like me who can say "Why encourage such a lifestyle by giving to them?"
There's a parable in the Bible about a prodigal son, a nasty, ungrateful child who grabbed his inheritance early from his father, ran away from home, partied till he had nothing, then returned home in the most abject humiliation, the lowest of lows (he was reduced to eating pig slop) to ask his father if he would recieve him back as a servant in the household. But the father saw him coming from a distance, and ran to embrace him. Instead of accepting him as a servant, he clothed him in a new robe and slaughtered his finest calf for a feast, accepting him as his son. "My Son, who once was lost, is now found"
There comes times when I see things clearly. That really, with my sins, I should be judged just as harshly as I judge others. I am no better than those homeless men I've seen - they need Jesus just as much as I do. And, as a Christian who has experienced God's mercy and love, should show mercy and love to others.
