The poor among us

I will do my best not to make this a rant and not gossip. If I thought the problem was only with the anonymous man mentioned below, I would not write so publicly. But it's too easy to see the same kind of reasoning in churches across the country, and I can't keep silent about it any more.

I didn't make it to church today. I was on my way. I was looking forward to being there. I needed to be there, I thought. But I didn't make it.

I was waylaid by another member of my church. Why, exactly, he stopped me, I don't know. I don't have any idea what he was trying to tell me, or at least not what was important enough to stop me on the way to service for. But stopped I was, and stop I did. Something was on his mind, and for some reason, instead of fleeing from him and his pontificating ways (like I usually do), I stayed to listen.

The topic we eventually got to didn't surprise me. It was the homeless people who sleep outside the church.

It took us forever to get there, so I'll spare you the defensive and outrageous conversational padding and get right to the major points. Here's what he said, in one poisonous nutshell:

1. Our church has good preaching, a good organist, a good choir, and a pretty sanctuary.
   
2. Despite this, our church experiences only minimal growth.
   
3. Since, in his words, we have the "big things" covered (as detailed in point 1), we should look at "small things" that are keeping people out of the church.
   
4. Outsiders have complained to him that the homeless people outside make them uncomfortable.
   
5. This is a problem because without numerical growth, monetary giving to the church will decrease.
   
6. Any adequate solution to this problem involves forbidding homeless people to sleep on our porch.
   
7. Anyone who doesn't like this solution is too wishy-washy to make a decision and stick by it.

So what's the problem? Well, this:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor...
Isaiah 61:1-2a

... or any other of what must be hundreds of instances where God makes it clear that in his Kingdom, his poor are taken care of.

There are many things to be concerned about in this reasoning, but I'll just highlight one. It seems obvious: "What you win them with is what you win them to," as some now-anonymous wise person said. If your primary attraction as an organization is fine oration, good music, and beautiful architecture, then of course the presence of the poor on your doorstep is just an aesthetic problem, just a blemish. A little bleach and elbow grease will have it out, and the crowds will come pouring in to your sanctuary.

If only Jesus had said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you surround yourselves with beauty." I wish. But it's "if you love one another". And people don't get excluded from "one another" because they have to take their weekly bath in your restroom sink.

It's the first part of that verse, though, that is at the heart of my concern. "All me will know that you are my disciples." What does that mean? It means that we take up our cross. Not necessarily that we do pleasant work, or even safe work, but that we do the will of our Father in heaven. If our primary concern as a church is to preserve our organization, then we are dead already. And if we are doing the will of our Father, it's probably going to turn some people away.

Could we do better? Absolutely. The sight of a homeless man sitting at our church door begging, day after year, seems ominously prophetic in its symbolism. Should we be opening our homes to these people? Probably. Not that I have any room to talk. But letting people sleep under our porch is one small concession we can make toward having a ministry of hospitality. It's one step closer to having the poor "among us" in a real sense. In short, it's one tiptoe closer to doing the will of the Father.

And because of that, I get to say something unpopular. If I were the one to choose between one more white middle-class family and the poor, smelly drunk at the door, I pick the smelly drunk. There are any number of places that will happily show the love of Christ to a family of nice people with advanced degrees and well-behaved children. But this church has a duty to love its neighbors, which means also to the people who sleep, literally, next-door. And the call of this church should be not to comfort but to a discipleship that gets its hands dirty, to a way of living and loving and serving that will ultimately cost us all we have- including our sense of security and comfort.