GC Thanksgiving Day Message - Dismissed

However, as he turned to walk away, I half justified saying no by scouring the room with my eyes. He had to have walked past ten to fifteen people to get to me. Why hadn’t he asked them instead of me? It was a scam, I thought. Examining his filthy clothing, his age (he looked relatively young), and his gait, in a split second, I’d provided myself with myriad justifications for saying no.

My soul filled with conviction and I looked up once again and saw the man with the weathered black hand sitting at a table, in the midst of a very middle class crowd, waiting for his coffee and muffin. Someone believed he needed it and took care of him. And all I could think about until I talked with D was that the someone who took care of him wasn’t me.

Poor D called to discuss the recent Senate probe into several churches’ finances, which led to a discussion on giving, in general.

“Really, who are we to look at someone and decide not to help them?” asked D. He expounded on the point by sharing that Jesus said that when we take care of people, we take care of Him. And that would be about the time I felt so bad for not helping that man.

“Guess I’m going to have to start carrying some extra money on me for the people who ask me for food or cash,” D said. I agreed with him.

Some years ago, I attended a cold, heartless church that demonstrated little in the way of love for people. I asked God should I leave? Not too long after a woman used her keys to the church to sneak her children in at night to feed them, bathe them and put them to bed on the pews. One of my friends advocated on her behalf by asking the pastor for money to put her in an apartment.

“We did that before,” he said. “She’ll just waste the money and end up back on the streets again.”

It was cruel.

Another time, I’d visited a church where the pastors boasted from the pulpit that a member had called in dire need of financial assistance and they looked at the church books to see if he tithed. He didn’t and they, in turn, decided that he was unworthy of being helped.