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invisible people
I stepped on the bus and worked my way through the crowd at the front nearly getting knocked over as I tried to find a single opening to stand when out of nowhere a massive opening emerged and not only was I able to stand but there were several empty seats right in front of me. (This isn’t a normal occurrence during the morning rush hour on the 10-bus to the Financial District.) I paused for a moment, looked around and took a seat. It wasn’t until I settled in that I realized why these seats around me were nearly vacant.
To my left sat a man hidden behind a newspaper. As he lowered the paper in a jerky, almost spastic fashion he revealed his unshaven, unkempt appearance, complete with a slight odor. The spastic nature of his movements continued on as he began to mumble, speaking to himself, laughing, grunting, moving from side to side in a random, twitchy sort of way. This is why no one was sitting down, this is why everyone else chose to stand and be randomly tossed about as the MUNI driver made his sudden stops, starts and bus tipping turns.
As I looked around at the people’s demeanor it was quite obvious that although no one was looking at this man, they certainly felt his presence: clutching their briefcases a little closer, closing their jackets a little tighter and tensing their body a little more. One man stood chuckling to himself as he glanced at the man from time to time. As I sat a mere 12 inches from the man listening to his grunts and mumbles, I held my bag a little closer, tensed my body a little more and looked as straight ahead as possible until my stop came and I quickly exited the bus.
As I walked the few blocks to the coffee shop I would inhabit for the rest of the morning I wondered about my reaction to this man and questioned what love looks like in that situation. Could I have treated him differently, responded to him differently that would have created an in-breaking of the Kingdom?
San Francisco is home to over 15,000 homeless people. It’s not hard to step over them every single day, ignore them as you pass them by and treat them as invisible people. When inundated with such poverty in the midst of such beauty it’s easy to overlook the ugly, the downtrodden, the hopeless and focus our attention on the spectacular and beautiful things of the city. This is a daily situation that takes shape in different forms and yet each day I feel farther and farther away from knowing how to respond. Poverty, homelessness in the urban environment is a systemic problem that requires some sort of revolution in order to change. Until we learn to see the people behind the poverty, change is far away.
How does the Kingdom break into this kind of system and how does an individual affect change one day at a time by learning to see the people behind the poverty?
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8 Responses to “invisible people”
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I think one of the ways we can approach this is by serving these men and women one at a time. Take an extra lunch with you next time you go out and find someone to give it to. After you hand them the lunch, ask if you can sit and eat with them. Talk to them. Find out their story. Share part of your life. I’m sure you’ll make an impact on that person.
Grace and Peace
I’m not really sure food is the answer. Even though it seems as if the homeless are looking for food, I don’t believe that they really go hungry too often in San Francisco (my perception). There is an overwhelming amount of service agencies that provide food and it seems that when you offer food it is met with suspicion and/or contempt. (I’ve had several contemptuous encounters since being here in relation to food.) Neither do they want a “rich boy” (although I’m not all that rich) to sit down with them for a chat. There’s a huge barrier between us that has to be broken down and I’m not sure how or what that looks like…
I think the easiest thing to do with anyone is treat them like they’re still a human being. Granted this isn’t going to work with crazy as well but body language still says a lot to a person as well as tone of voice. Someone can tell if you pity them and most people don’t want pity. If you think someone is your equal and you treat them like your equal they tend to warm up a little bit faster. But if there is anything I’m learning in my current occupation it’s things take more time than you like them to, so it’s best to not have expectations or timetables. Just be glad for any progress you might make.
or for that matter don’t expect progress. Just enjoy being in that person’s presence.
The food is not the issue, it’s the relationship. I don’t really care what you give or don’t give as long as you take the time to 1) recognize that they exist in a positive way and 2) remember it’s not a chat. It’s part of your life. It will not happen over night. Whoever God lays on your heart to connect with my curse at you or not talk to you, but you keep putting yourself out there and God will do the rest.
Half of you can’t help but feel bad for them – matter of fact, you often wonder what circumstances brought them to where they are. The bigger question looms over my head when I see someone in this state – what can I do? Simply a 5 minute conversation may brighten their day a bit – but in the grand scheme does it really matter? Should there be something more for them – more than my 5 minutes and a sandwich? This is where I feel we need to be prepared to share the gospel any where, anytime, in any weather. We may only have 5 minutes – and why waste it with anything less than sharing Christ – who in turn can be the provider and lifter once we walk away.
I often wonder if just sharing Jesus with a homeless person is really the gospel to them, if it’s really good news. If I were them I probably have heard it time and again and hearing that Jesus died for my sins isn’t really all that good of news when I’m starving or freezing to death at night. It intrigues me that often times Jesus healed the person first before forgiving their sins, he dealt with their physical need first before dealing the with the “spiritual” side of things.
That’s what interests me about what Nick said about body language. I wonder what openings that might present considering the dignity you bring or deny someone by how you respond to their presence. Could dignity be the good news that opens the Kingdom up to them?
“In Scripture, Jesus never calls us to be with the poor.” I heard this today and it really intrigued me, so I did a search on youversion.com and couldn’t find anything about Jesus calling us to be with the poor. I’m not even sure he really called us to “serve” the poor but he did call us to give to the poor (< a href="http://youversion.com/reader.php?startverse=Matt.19.21" target="_blank">Matthew 19.21)
I’m curious, has anyone heard anything like this before? And do you see anything in the words of Jesus that make you think differently? I’m still chewing on this… it’s really intrigued me.