September 17, 2008

Coffee or Milk?

2008 1526 page26 capALGARY IS A BOOMING CITY IN southern Alberta within sight of the Canadian Rockies. I once attended several days of meetings involving denominational leaders at a downtown hotel. After one all-day session I was eager to get out and stretch my legs. Since I had already walked around much of the central city, I sought out a new direction for my stroll.
 
In one area several city blocks had been razed and leveled in preparation for an urban renewal project. Not only were there no buildings, I saw no signs of people in this area—perfect for some welcome solitude.
 
Didn’t See It Coming
I had been ambling rather aimlessly through this now-barren landscape when immediately in front of me was an obviously homeless couple standing beside a makeshift cardboard shelter on the sidewalk. Even more tragically, the couple had three small children, the eldest of whom appeared to be about 4.
 
By the time I was too near to avoid them, the man approached me. “Mister,” he said, “could you spare a little money so I can buy coffee for my three children?”
 
2008 1526 page26Did I hear him correctly? Did he ask for “a little money so I can buy coffee for my three children?” Indeed he had!
 
My mind raced trying to think of a way to respond. Are homeless persons without initiative, or victims of our social order “down on their luck”? There was no time to debate the issue. The eyes of those three young children immediately began to haunt me.
 
But the question he asked—“Could you spare a little money so I can buy coffee for my three children?”—was the wrong question, for a number of reasons.
 
I’m a Seventh-day Adventist who had just spent the entire day rubbing shoulders with church leaders. My pharisaical streak was running close to the surface.
 
For another thing, I have always personally detested the taste of coffee in all its forms. Even if I weren’t an Adventist, I still wouldn’t drink coffee. All this makes it very easy for me to condemn people not blessed with my natural distaste for it.
 
But even when I tried to adopt my most accommodating level of tolerance, the idea of children drinking coffee shocked me as totally unthinkable. How could I respond to this man’s outrageous question? Three options quickly came to mind:
 
First, I could give the man some money to get rid of him; that would be the easy solution. Yet, if I did, he said he would buy coffee for his kids. How could I live with my conscience if I were party to such a thing?
 
Second, being a good disciple, I could say, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee.” Then I could proceed to give him a good strong finger-shaking, tongue-
lashing lecture on the evils of giving coffee to children.
 
Third, I could say nothing, make a beeline across the street, and get out of there as quickly as possible. And in the strictest tradition of the priest and the Levite, I immediately crossed over and passed by on the other side of the street.
 
Living With Myself
As soon as I started across the street, the man turned the air blue with a string of expletives.
 
There, I told myself. You did the right thing. He’s not worthy of your witness. All that cursing proves it.
 
I didn’t convince myself, however. All the way back to the hotel my conscience bothered me. I couldn’t sleep that night, thinking of those three children. I kept saying to myself, “Forget it, he said he wanted to give those children coffee, didn’t he? You wouldn’t want your money to go to that, would you? Besides, remember the language he used. You did the right thing. You did the right thing. YOU DID THE RIGHT THING!”
 
Then the piercing eyes of those three little children would come into my mind. I couldn’t rationalize them away, no matter how I tried. I wasn’t sure what choice I should have made, but I was certain that the choice I did make was dead wrong. The parable of the good Samaritan is one of the best known and most clearly unmistakable object lessons in the Bible. I had been the priest. I had been the Levite. I had been the bad guy.
 
After tossing and turning all night, I got out of bed soon after first light and walked out to the place where I had encountered the homeless family. They were gone. The cardboard lean-to was gone. Not a sign remained that anyone had ever been there.
 
Next Time
Reflecting on this event more than a decade later, I’ve finally wrestled a few nuggets from it. The reason I acted like the priest and the Levite was because I had been thinking like the priest and the Levite. Just as they were caught up in the legalism of possible ritual defilement, I was caught up in the legalism of abstaining from that which my faith tradition has taught me is unhealthy. Like them, I allowed a lesser thing to get in the way of the far greater priority of caring for people in need.
 
Would the homeless father actually have used whatever money I gave him to buy coffee for his three little children? In my heart, I knew that really wasn’t the case. He wasn’t really asking for coffee. He was obviously confused about how to incorporate the standard panhandler’s line—“Hey buddy, can you spare some change for a cup of coffee”—with an appeal based on the needs of his children. I had simply latched on to his unfortunate choice of words in order to justify a response worthy of a priest or Levite.


Questions for Reflection
 

1. Do you have a standard response for dealing someone who's looking for a handout? What is it?

2. Is your standard response consistent with the way Jesus would minister to such an individual? Why, or why not?

3. Which is more important when meeting a person's immediate, obvious needs: to offer practical help, or to craft a more principled response?


4.
How does Jesus' ministry to the marginalized inform your outreach to the less fortunate in our society?

What should I have done instead?

 
First, I should have asked the Lord to prepare me to witness before I even embarked upon that walk. We should not decide when or where we want to witness; we should be ready when the opportunity presents itself, unrehearsed and unscripted. Responding to human need is itself a witness, and usually provides the opportunity for more specific spiritual witness of the right kind.
 
What is the right kind of spiritual witness? In 1 Corinthians 3:2 and Hebrews 5:12-14 the apostle Paul wrote of the need of the milk of the Word for those who are just being introduced to it, and saving the meat of the Word for those who have reached a sufficient level of spiritual growth. Too often, however, we run into a spiritual babe and try to force-feed that immature disciple with the meat of the Word.
 
The homeless man asked for coffee—at least money for coffee. What he and his family really needed was milk—first the milk of human kindness (which could have included some milk for the kids), then the milk of the Word. What I really wanted to give him was the meat of my views of healthful living. What I actually gave him was nothing, nothing at all. I bypassed forever an opportunity to witness.
 
Jesus promised His disciples: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19). We have been given the keys of the kingdom to open its door to all we meet. We can’t force people through that door; they must decide to pass through it themselves. I didn’t use that key to unlock the door for that homeless family in Calgary.
 
They asked for coffee. I should have given them milk.
 
________
Wayne Taylor is president of Healthcare Excess Liability Management in Roseville, California; and Adhealth, Ltd. in Hamilton, Bermuda, both Adventist-owned healthcare organizations in the North American Division.
 
 
 
 
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