Remember a Dollar For The Homeless

Dallas is seventy-nine years old and a hospice patient with terminal cancer. He, and his wife Ginny, live in a modest duplex in town. Dallas loves the outdoors and loves to manicure his lawn. He admits that he’s struggling a little with his prognosis. He’s doing better than the doctors predicted so he wanders where on the road he is. With a quivering voice and tears in his eyes, Dallas pointed up and declared, “God is the only one who really knows and He is the only one who can heal me. So I’ll just keep pushing until I can’t push no more.”

Dallas and Ginny were children during the Great Depression. Ginny recounted: “Nobody had jobs then. We had fried potatoes and biscuits and gravy for breakfast. An egg, well, that was for rich people. The hobos would come to our door almost every day. They marked the houses some way; so they could all know which houses would give them something to eat. Mom and dad always helped out strangers. They were generous like that. When a hobo came to the door mom would always give them something to eat. She would tell them to sit on the front porch. She would fix them a plate of whatever we had left over. Mom would sprinkle water over the left over biscuits and then reheat them to make them soft again. She’d carry the food out to the front porch and sometimes she would sit down and talk with them. When they were finished they always said thank you. Dallas added, “Sometimes you would see them on the streets holding signs ‘Will work for food’. But you never saw them after dark. I think they stayed under the bridge. They never bothered any body.”

“Homelessness” is just a new name for an age old problem. Jesus said, “For you have the poor always with you” (Matthew 26:11) Almost thirty-five hundred years ago, God directed Moses to command the people: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field …You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger…” (Leviticus 23:22). And the Apostle Paul wrote, “…we should remember the poor...”(Galatians 2:10)

But it seems more complicated today, doesn’t it? We still see people holding signs stating, “Will work for food”; or they come up to us and ask, “Can you spare a couple bucks?” How do we know if the need is legitimate? Even when we do give, we wander if we did the right thing. Did we really help or just help someone buy alcohol or drugs?

I want to suggest something that is a “right thing”. The church my family attends has a large pot located at the door. At the end of every service the congregation is encouraged to, “Remember, a dollar for the homeless”. The money collected in the pot is donated to the local homeless shelter. A dollar seems so insignificant. But do you know what. It feels so good to play a small part in something so big.

Out of curiosity, I called the homeless shelter last week to see what difference our donations make. Diane, one of the employees told me, “We couldn’t run without the help. I don’t know what we would do.” She stated that a few other churches and several civic organizations also help, “The community is really good to us.”

I asked about the services they provide and Diane replied, “We are considered an ‘emergency shelter’ so we can only provide food and shelter for a maximum of 30 days every 18 months. We can house up to thirty-six residents and we always have kids”. The staff helps clients obtain services and benefits they are entitled to; they help them find permanent housing when possible; they teach money management; engage in “homeless prevention” by helping with rent and utilities; and operate a food pantry. Diane stated, “It’s just like trying to keep up a large house…Just buying toilette paper for 36 people is expensive.” I asked what they would like to do if they had more money. Diane replied, “We’d like to buy new beds…remodel our kitchen…add a bathroom...”

Now the challenge! There are over a hundred churches in our area. If each congregation averages only fifty people, and every person gave “…a dollar for the homeless”, it would add up to $260,000 a year. Can you imagine what could legitimately be done; the scope of services that could be provided? We could collectively meet most of the legitimate basic needs of the homeless in our area, one dollar at a time. Then, even when we decide not to give the fellow on the corner a couple bucks, we don’t have to feel ashamed, because we are still doing something.

If you’re a pastor, I challenge you, in a spirit of cooperation, to invite and allow your congregation to, “Remember, a dollar for the homeless” If you attend a local congregation, I challenge you to make the suggestion. In case you need to call the homeless shelter to tell them your money is on its way, their telephone number is 353-4085.

A Human Being First and a Husband Second

Jim was in his late sixties when he was admitted to hospice for brain cancer. He was tall and lanky; well over six feet tall. He was bald from surgery and chemotherapy and unable to talk. During my initial visit Jim sat silently folded into his wheelchair. His appearance disguised his accomplishments and abilities, but his wife, Mary made sure I knew what kind of man he’d been. She informed me, “He was a brilliant man. He was strong- willed and self-disciplined. He was gifted in mathematics and sciences; he was a chemist and the nationwide quality control director for a large corporation.”

After reviewing the challenges that she and Jim had experienced because of Jim’s cancer, Mary concluded, “You can learn a lot from hard times if you are willing. Other people can be your teachers. And you can learn as much from bad examples as you can from good ones. You can learn what not to do.”

Naturally, I asked Mary what she’d learned through Jim’s illness and she paused a few seconds to reflect and concluded, “I’ve learned to look at Jim as a human being first and a husband second, because you expect more from a husband than you do a human being.” Mary’s statement stopped me in my tracks. As she continued talking I struggled to stay connected, to listen. I felt immediately compelled to inventory my relationships. Who have I failed to see as a human being first? Upon whom have I laid unrealistic expectations, and why?

I’m reminded of Jesus’ rebuke of the legalistic, hypocritical Pharisees of His day; “They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers (Matthew 23:4) Let’s admit it, we do the same thing today, don’t we? We “bind heavy burdens”, in the form of unrealistic expectations, and lay them on the shoulders of our spouses, our children, our parents, our friends, our pastors, our physicians etc. We expect more from them than we do from a human being.

Tim Keller, the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan wrote a powerfully penetrating and enlightening book titled, “Counterfeit Gods”, in which he explores and reveals the roots of our unrealistic expectations. His words spoke so strongly to me that what I write from this point on feels like I’m flirting with plagiarism. But I’ve written them on the tablet of my heart and they now feel like a part of me. So I give Tim Keller credit for any good thing you may receive from this point on.

Tim Keller contends that the human heart is an “Idol factory”; that we take “good things” like romance, love, marriage, family, approval, personal success, health, beauty, and material possessions and turn them into “ultimate things”.

These good things can become our idols, our “counterfeit gods”. An idol is anything we consider essential to our happiness and fulfillment other than God. How many times have you said to yourself, “I’d be happy if…If I only had…..if I could only…If they would only ...”?

Tim Keller concludes that no human being, husband, wife, child, or parent can stand up “under the crushing weight of our divine expectations…No human being is qualified for that role…and the inevitable result is bitter disillusionment”. You see, when we turn a “good thing” into an “ultimate thing” we always end up disappointed; because they can never live up to our expectations. And in the light of truth, in the light of who we are, who others are and who God is, it’s not only insane, it’s unfair.

The subtle danger lies in that idols are almost always good things. But freedom isn’t found by no longer loving and appreciating the good things, but in loving God so much more that we don’t become “enslaved by our attachments”. For we all worship something and whatever we worship we serve. Therefore, our idols can’t just be removed they must be replaced, “supplanted by God himself…not as a hedge against failure. Not as one more resource to use to help us achieve our agendas…He is a whole new agenda.”

In conclusion, I challenge us to identify our “counterfeit gods” Then maybe we can see others as human beings first; and maybe we’ll wise up and stop going to dry wells for a drink of water.

My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of Living Water. And they have hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)