The man

I don't actually know his name.

Though he greets me nearly every morning by name, I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember his.  But I know exactly who he is.  He is the man that every morning- or nearly so- is out front watering, cleaning or doing something outside the building.  He's a resident at Breakthrough, and he treats it as his home, always washing a window or floor.

I don't know his story, either.  I suspect it is similar to the stories of the other men and women that come through our doors.  It's a story in which he is the victim, the perpetrator and every other role in between (just as I have been in my life).  Perhaps he has broken relationships, perhaps he never finished high school- no one else in his family has- perhaps he used to have a steady job before the plant/office/company down-sized.  Or maybe he's floated in and out of different jobs for all of his adult life for a variety of reasons.  He has been wronged by a system that makes him a piece of paper or a number or one left behind, where it is nearly impossible for "someone like him" to succeed.  And frankly, I imagine that sometimes he's tired of trying.  I would be, too, if I had experienced all that he has.

I wish- how I wish!- I could just categorize him in that big lump of "lazy" and blame him for not having a job, or a place of his own or a steady income.  I'm sure that is true of at least some percentage of the urban poor I see on a daily basis.  But God, how I wish it were that simple!  I know that's not the answer, though- it's too simple. Instead, I know that it is "simple" things like supply and demand, bad policies and- yes- evil hearts, that have kept him from getting a job.

The thing is, even if it were that simple- if he was just lazy or an addict or whatever- there would still be more expected of me and my response to him.  I couldn't just tell him to go get a job, even if that were the only problem.  I couldn't just write him off, without a second thought, an invitation in or a crumb (Isaiah 58:7-9).  I couldn't just wish him well and send him on his way, without clothes, without food and without sustenance (James 2:14-17).

I couldn't.  WE can't.

This is not a discussion about policies- though that conversation most definitely needs to be had.  It's not even about who's to blame- though I promise you there is plenty to spread around.

It's about a Man.  A Man who calls me to service outside of myself, my concerns and my needs.  A Man who, for MY sake, became poor (2 Cor. 8:9).  A Man who reminds me that He is happy when I am doing justice to my fellow man and loving mercy (Micah 6:8)- not because it makes me feel good inside, but because in being made like Him, it is in part what I was made for.  It's about a Man who "had compassion" (over and over and over again throughout the Gospels).  On the poor, the orphaned, the widowed.  And on me.

A Man who- because of His life- changed the way that I am to live mine: in service to Him by serving others.  And that is what has made all the difference.