The Messy Task Of Touching Others

"The Messy Task of Touching Others"
Mark 7:31-37


When I was pastor in Colby, one of the roles I fell into was dealing with the transients who came through town.  The church and the manse were next door to each other on state highway 24 that went east and west across the northern half of the state.  And we were just a couple of blocks off of state highway 25 that went north and south through western Kansas.  Colby, itself, was on Interstate 70.  The church was in a very visible place and probably 90% of the transients who came through town stopped at the Presbyterian church looking for some kind of assistance.

I met all kinds of people in all kinds of conditions.  Each year most of the transients had the same hard luck line, as if they got together for a transient convention in Florida or Texas each winter and decided what the story was going to be for the coming summer.  And there were some memorable odd stories.

The ministers and churches in town, like here, had a system whereby we never gave out cash, but sent them to the sheriff’s office for aid.  The deputy would run them through the national crime check computer to see if they were wanted for anything.

One guy I sent down to the sheriff’s office evidently didn’t know about computers and the internet.  He went down to get some gas money and was promptly arrested for some minor charge in another state.  He used his one phone call to call me up and ask for bail money.  His car looked like it was straight out of the Grapes of Wrath, packed from floor to ceiling.  He pulled out a vintage Fender Stratocaster guitar and told me he’d sell it to me for the $100 he needed for bail money.  I didn’t have the need for an electric guitar at that time, but wished I would have bought it--it was probably worth thousands.

Then he pulled out a large set of old 45 records.  He told me they were his babies, and he wanted them back.  So if I gave him the $100, he’d give me the records.  But when he got to where he was going, Oregon I think, he’d send me the $100 and the postage so I could mail them back.  They were all in mint condition.  I figured if I never heard from the guy, I could sell them to a collector for much more than $100.  So I gave him the money, and off he went.  About a year later I got a phone call from him, wanting to know if I still had his “babies.”  I still had them; he sent me the money; and I mailed them off to him.

Another transient walked up the sidewalk to the manse.  I was sitting on the front porch.  He had a cup of coffee from Loves in his hand and a newly lit cigarette stuck in his mouth.  He said, “Reverend, (they all call me Reverend) I’m just down on my luck.  I just spent my last dollar on this cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes, and I’m about starving to death.”
I said, “Sounds like you should have spent your last dollar more wisely.  I can’t help you.”
He said, “Can’t or won’t.”
I said, “Won’t.”  He walked on cussing me out all the way down the sidewalk for a least a couple of blocks.

Some people are scam artists--survivors who’ve been on the road for a long time.  They know how to get by.  Others are really sad cases, and I got to the point where I could almost tell which was which.  But like I said, I was the one who ended up being in the trenches with most of those people.  Other churches were tucked away back in neighborhoods, out of sight.  Between Spring and Fall of each year, I probably dealt with four or five transients a week.

They all took up my time.  There were times seeing a transient come in the church door was the last thing I wanted to deal with.  They were, most of them, con artists, and I would sit and listen to their tales of woe.  I would have rather been doing other “churchly” kinds of things instead of having to deal with some smelly “road warrior,” spinning out their tales and lies.

I had one guy who wanted to dig the weeds out of the cracks of the sidewalk in front of church with his screwdriver.  Even before I could say no, he was down on his hands and knees scratching away at the weeds.  While he weeded, looking at me through his coke bottle bottom glasses, he’d ask me theological or church related questions.  Well, I didn’t want to get into a theological discussion with a transient who picked weeds with a screwdriver.  I had a pile of other stuff I needed to do and talking with him was a major distraction.

But it turned out to be one of the most amazing conversations, because this guy knew what he was he was talking about.  He asked questions that demonstrated he had an understanding and intelligence that was much higher than the average stray human being coming through town.  And he came back the next year.  And I think the year after that.  Screwdriver in hand.  My suspicion was he was someone like a college sociology or psychology professor doing research for a Ph.D.

The main thing was these people took up my time.  And they smelled.  And they were often belligerent and demanding, as if they were entitled to the maximum amount of help I could dole out.  I would end up taking them to the sheriff’s department, or the motel, or to the grocery store.  And for the people who I discerned as legitimately needy--especially those with kids--I would supplement with my own money what they received from the sheriff’s department.

It was easy for the members of the congregations to deal with the transients.  The members of the participating churches would, through special offerings, give money for the Transient Aid Fund.  But those members would never have to deal, face-to-face with the needy who came to my doorstep and rang my doorbell while I was eating dinner with my family.  The congregation didn’t have to be interrupted at work or home to deal with a vagabond visitor.

Jesus dealt with it day in and day out.  The world’s unfortunates were carried to him and plopped down in front of him with the words, “Do something.”  A man born blind.  A woman at the well who had half a dozen husbands.  10 people with leprosy--all at once.  A demon possessed girl.  All of them begged Jesus, desperate with need, looking to him for a handout miracle.  Face-to-face encounters with the world’s dispossessed.

I confess, as you might be able to tell, my attitude was not always “Christian” in my dealings with such people.  I felt put out, or aggravated that these stinky, destitute people who constantly made bad decisions in life, who went about conning their way through life, were taking up my time and energy when I had more important things to do.

That’s why I always marvel at how Jesus always takes the time.  Always is gentle.  Always makes such people feel like they are important simply because of who they were.  That Jesus gave them his time in such an unaggravated way.  With the deaf man, Jesus took him aside, away from the curiosity seekers, and treated him in a one-on-one, personal way.

And Jesus was always touching these people.  If I shook hands with a transient, which I always do, I’d, when they left, go in and immediately wash my hands.  But look at what Jesus does with this deaf man, who can hardly talk, touching him in such an oddly personal way.  Jesus sticks his fingers in the man’s ears and spits on the man’s tongue.  I should try that with the next transient who comes to the church office.  I mean, what’s with that?  But if Jesus  just spoke, would that have been enough for the deaf man?  He needed something more personal, more visible, so that he knew Jesus was doing something to him and for him.

Jesus took him aside, looked him in the eye, put his fingers in the guy’s ears and laid some spit on the man’s tongue.  All of it a demonstration to the man of Jesus’ personal extension and attentiveness to the man.  A messy, personal attentiveness that told the man he was being taken care of.

Mother Teresa in her book, No Greater Love, wrote about finding a man laying in the gutter.  This is how she described the encounter:

His body was covered with maggots.  I brought him to our house, and what did this man say?  He did not curse.  He did not blame anyone.  He just said, “I have lived like an animal in the street, but I’m going to die like an angel, loved and cared for.”  It took us three hours to clean him and his festering wounds.  Finally, the man looked up at the sister and said, “Sister, I’m going to God.”  And then he died.  I’ve never seen such a radiant smile on a human face as the one I saw on that man’s face.  See what love can do! … And this is where you and I fit into God’s plan.  (pg. 23-24)

Hear that last sentence of Mother Teresa’s again:  “And that’s where YOU and I fit into God’s plan.”  God’s plan for we believers always has to do with going outside of ourselves.  With extending ourselves to others.  But those others may be people we would rather not have to deal with.  They may not be people who are deaf--maybe they are.  They may not be people who are covered with maggots, and whose rotting wounds have the stench of decay and death--but maybe they will be.

They will most likely be people we don’t care for.  They are people who aren’t “our kind.”  People who you have no respect for.  Outsiders.  People who are needy, in one way or another.  At-risk, is what we call them these days.  People who take up your time, who are demanding of your time; who interrupt your routine, who ask something of you that you’d rather not give.  And it’s not money.

When I was up in Seattle at the end of July to disperse my parents ashes, I saw a lot of homeless people.  When we went to the waterfront area, they were sitting along the sidewalk, out in front of nice restaurants like Ivars Acres Of Clams, looking for handouts.  That would have been the easy thing to do.  Throw a few coins in their coffee cans, maybe a dollar bill or two.  But would I have seen the miracle if I just did that?  Would I have, as Mother Teresa described, seen the radiant look of transformation on their faces?

One little old African American lady was sitting on the sidewalk, three bags of stuff beside her.  She was banging on a cow bell with a drum stick.  Her only contribution to society was beating out an annoying rhythm and taking up space on the sidewalk.

I wondered what life was like for her.  How long she had been on the streets.  Did she have any family or friends?  Where did she stay at night?  What’s it like for a woman to be on the streets?  They are all interesting questions that went through my head as I walked by her.  Questions that I’ll never know the answer to because I didn’t take the time to stop and ask so I could hear her answers.

I didn’t have time.  At least I didn’t think I had the time.  That’s what I told myself.  I thought I had the luxury of being able to just walk by, pretending I didn’t see her, or hear her beat of the cowbell; just keep walking and forget her.  Someone with whom I don’t have to concern myself.  Too messy to get involved.  Too time consuming to fit into God’s plan.  Certainly I wouldn’t have to feel like I should get involved to the point of putting my fingers in her ears and touching her tongue--however that would be demonstrated for a lady with a cowbell and three garbage bags of possessions.

Who are the people you don’t notice?  Who are the people you may not care to notice--people you try to avoid?  Who are the people whose faces you glance into and then turn away, avoiding eye contact?  Who are the people who aren’t worth your time?  Who are the people you’d rather not have to deal with on a face-to-face encounter?  (For me, right now they are all on COM.)  Who are the people you are missing seeing what love and God can do, through you, if you’d only be willing to extend yourself to them, even if the encounter is messy and time consuming?

We’ve been challenged, through this $100,000 gift to make a difference in some of those kinds of people--children, 3rd through 6th grade, and maybe their families.  It’s going to be hard and messy work.

People ask, “How come we don’t see miracles anymore, like Jesus did?”  Maybe it’s because we walk past so many opportunities to make those miracles happen through us.  I hope and pray to God, that we will see some of those miracles in the little faces of children whom we will touch in the coming years.