First off, let me say that Julie has an excellent blog post about her recent encounter with a homeless woman in Bismarck, ND, and I encourage you to read it.  There are some days when I read Julie’s blog and I think to myself, “Gee, I wish I could write about my everyday experiences like she does. “  Julie’s ability to succinctly narrate her adventures, and often with a humorous twist, makes me insanely jealous at times, and I have to watch out that the deadly sin of envy doesn’t rear it’s ugly head too high or too often.

Anyway, her post reminded me of a gentleman who has frequented First UMC in Pottstown three time over the last two weeks.  But first, some background.  First Church is in the middle of downtown Pottstown, and though Pottstown is by no means a big city (less than 25,000 inhabitants), it does have some “big city” problems, and First Church is right in the middle of where many of these problems can be found.  In any given year we have a couple of murders, usually drug-related, and just before I came here seven years ago a supposed crack-house on the corner of the block the church sits on burned down.  A member of our church was also severely beaten and left for dead in the alley behind our church at about the same time.  There are people who won’t come to downtown Pottstown at night because of events like these, though I think things have gotten much better in the years I have been here.

Pottstown also has a sizable homeless population for a community it’s size, and perhaps one of the reasons for this is the multitude of social agencies in our community for folks on the edge of society.  The churches and synagogue in our town run a cluster ministry that has a clothing bank, a food bank, and which also provides hot meals five days a week in area churches.  First Church hosts the noon meal every Friday.  The Salvation Army maintains an active presence here, and we also have a “One Night at a Time” ministry that provides shelter for the homeless during the winter, which, again, is hosted by area churches.  There are also several free clinics in town, and just one block from our church is a social agency called Creative Health, where you will find a number of the homeless and/or down and outs milling about on any given hour of any given day.  The block our church is on also has a short-term drug and alcoholic rehabilitation center, our church provides meeting space three days a week for one of the Narcotics Anonymous groups in our community, and we also lease space for an alternative school in our building for students who can no longer attend the regular Middle and High Schools in surrounding school districts due to discipline problems.

I say all this so that you might understand that there is no telling who might show up at First Church on a Sunday morning (or whenever the doors of the church are open for that matter).  For awhile our services were blessed with the presence of Michael/Michelle, the friendly neighborhood transvestite.  Bob (not his real name) attended church off and on for over a year, and we were treated to the various manifestations of his manic-depressive disorder, including the one Sunday when he stood up while I was preaching a sermon on joy and shouted “f you!” before abruptly walking out of the service.  Let me tell you, it’s not easy to continue preaching after something like that happens.

A few years ago, another woman named attended our church for quite a while.  I still remember the service that featured my singing several songs instead of preaching the usual sermon.  I was in the middle of rousing rendition of “Sinners, Don’t Let This Harvest Pass,” when this woman proceeded to come up to the front of the church not once, or twice, but three times to present me with some commemorative plates that she had collected over the years.  I guess my singing so moved her that she was unable to wait until I was finished before handing them to me, so there I was singing away, turning my sheet music and trying to find a place to put each plate as it was ceremoniously handed to me by her.  A few months after that she showed up at the church one evening and would not leave, insisting that she should be allowed to sleep there (even though she had a home to go to).  We eventually had to call the police to force her departure.

There was also the day when a young man stood outside the door to the church office and proceeded to undress himself completely.  This was during the rehearsal time of a group of singers called the NIfty-Fifty by the way, and yes, that means everyone in the group was 50 or over (and most of them were well into their late sixties).  Alerted to the situation, and wanting to resolve the problem before these fine senior citizens finished their singing and would face being greeted by a very calm though thoroughly naked doorman, I cautiously approached the young man and asked if there was anything I could do for him.  He told me quietly and politely that I should call the police.  I did after some further conversation and several pleas with him to put something on.  He refused to do so, and later I learned why.  It seems that if you want to be admitted to one of the institutions in the area, the most sure-fire way of doing this is to be found naked in a public place.  This young man knew exactly what he was doing and what he had to do to get the help he needed.

I could on and on about similar experiences, but let me get back to the gentleman I spoke of earlier in the first paragraph.  Two Sundays ago he showed up in worship and tried to speak with several people both before and during the service.  Since people here are used to these kinds of things, no one was shocked or shaken by this.  The trouble was that the man was so obviously out of it because of drugs and/or alcohol that no one could understand a word that he was saying either.  I went to the back of the church to speak with him myself, and I too could not comprehend a single syllable, let alone word, of what he said.  I asked him to stay until after the service so we could talk, but he left before it ended.  “Case closed,” I thought.  But it  was not.

Yesterday we had a wedding at First Church.  The service had not yet begun, but people were beginning to arrive.  One of the ushers sought me out and said that a man was going around asking various guests for money.  I came into the sanctuary, and you guessed it, the man was back.  And yes, he was hitting up everyone he could for a few dollars.  And though he was able to better communicate on this day, I naturally had to ask him to leave, which he did.

This brings us to today.  The 9:00 am modern worship service is about 15 minutes from starting, and the only ones in the room are myself, Rob (our drummer) and my daughter Desiree.  She is practicing a song she will sing during worship when she looks over at me and says, “That man just took your coffee.”  Sure enough, the guy was back and I was just able to catch a glance of him (with my coffee in his hand) as he left the room, door closing behind him.  Now, if I was a nicer person, or if I was a better person, I no doubt would have let him take the coffee.  But I was in no mood, I guess.  Plus, the coffee was not in some paper cup from Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks.  No, it was in one of my own 24 ounce, thick plastic, orange tumblers (Jim, you know the ones of which I write), and though I didn’t mind the theft of the coffee, there was no way I was going to let him have the container it was in.

I moved quickly to the front of the room, fully prepared to chase the coffee and cup thief down if I had to do so.  Luckily (or not) I did not have to do this.  I had just gotten to the front door when said thief reappeared, with purloined goods still in hand.  He asked me if what he held was my coffee, and I answered, “Yes, it is.”  He then apologized, handed the cup back to me (with much less coffee in it now), and then, as if he had done nothing untoward beforehand, he asked if he could have some money.  Though I rarely do this, I gave him a couple of dollars in cash and promptly reclaimed my cup, with its remaining beverage (which, of course, I did not drink).

And now for a confession.  You see, during this whole time, I have to admit that I did not think of this man as “one of the least of these” that Jesus refers to in Matthew 25.  He was thirsty, and I did not offer him a drink.  In fact, I took his drink away.  Further, I was so consumed with retrieving a stupid plastic tumbler that I did had trouble seeing him as a person in real need at all.  In the end, the man simply pocketed the money I had given him and left, and I continued with my worship preparations without much thought about him until I read Julie’s post a couple of hours ago.

But now I am struck by the fact that, like the goats in Matthew 25 (a passage I preached on myself not even a month ago), I failed to see Christ present in a person standing right in front, and it was a person with real and obvious needs to boot. I was oblivious of the opportunity that I had in that moment to practice what I preach.  My actions showed how, at times, I fail to be the hands, the mouth, and the body of Jesus in my own little part of the world.

Realizing this leads me to a simple question:  “What will I do the next time?”  And given where First Church is located, there will be a next time, and a next time, and another next time after that.  And so I wonder, “What will I do?”   And for that matter, what would or will you do in a similar situation?  My prayer is that we always do what Jesus would do in these situations, and my hope is that we remember (as the writer of Hebrews states) that we never know when we might be entertaining angels unaware.