James 2:14-17

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

For the first time, I was hit full-force by the truth of these verses this week. Wednesday night, my small group leader Michael, Tucker (a fellow ManVan crew member from the Freshley fall retreat), and I went to visit Robert, the guy Michael and I met downtown the other week. We stopped by his trailer, but he wasn't home. His brother met us in the driveway, not sure what to think of us, and sent us on our way to find Robert downtown. (We left for Robert's house at about 7:45pm and came back to downtown Athens around 8.)

We never found Robert. But we did meet a homeless couple after about 20 minutes of walking: yet another Michael and his wife, Melinda. We saw Melinda sitting on the sidewalk eating, so we walked up and asked if there was anything we could pray about for her. For a while she didn't respond. Finally, she said, "Well..." but was cut off when Michael walked up and asked what we wanted. (He was a little drunk on whiskey (he told us himself), but he had enough of his mind about him to be conscious of what he was saying and to remember it later.) The rest of the night was one wild roller coaster ride of faith. God had so much to share with us through him, so much that I can only remember bits and pieces of it. The rest is stored away somewhere in the back of my mind, never to be brought back until something causes me to need it.

But what I do remember has already shaken me these last two days, and my understanding of real faith has grown because of it. At first, it seemed like Michael was going to go off on a rant on us. When he asked what we wanted, we told him what we had said to Melinda: that we were wondering if they wanted prayer for anything. This seemed to hit a sore spot for Michael, and he started off by saying (not word-for-word), "See, here's my problem with Christians who go around saying, 'I'll pray for you': That's all they ever do. They say, 'I'll pray for you,' and then they do nothing about my physical needs. What I really need is a place, a job and somewhere to stay. But nobody bothers to ask me why I'm homeless. Go ahead, ask me why I'm homeless." We asked, and he said, "Thank you! Nobody ever asks why I'm homeless. They just say they'll pray for me, and they never get to know why I need prayer, why I'm out on the streets. I'll tell you why: I have seizures. Epilepsy. I got a head injury years ago when I fell 15-20 feet from the top of a ladder and landed head-first on the concrete. Now I have seizures every five or six days or so. In fact, the other night when those tornadoes went through Tuscaloosa, I had three seizures in one night. I've had two in one day before, but never three. If you don't believe me, ask Melinda. Now I'm not allowed to work because I'm considered a liability to businesses. If I were to ever have a seizure on business property, the managers know that I could sue them, so they refuse to hire me. Even certain stores and restaurants don't let me in anymore because I've gotten hurt at some of them because I had seizures there. But I can't help it. I can't help that I have a medical problem. I can't help that I can't have a job because of it. I can't help that I'm homeless, but people look down on me and other homeless people anyway, thinking they're superior to us. But they don't know our circumstances because they never take the time to get to know us like you three have." (I'm not trying to lift myself above anyone else. I'm repeating what Michael said as accurately as possible, and he made sure to repeatedly acknowledge and show his gratitude for the fact that we had taken the time to listen to him.) "I'm a strong believer in the book of James: Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). What good is it if you say, 'I'll pray for you,' if you don't do anything about a person's physical needs (James 2:15-16)? All that does is make people think you're a hypocrite. 'Christians' walk by homeless people every day and don't even spare a passing glance. Is that how Jesus lived? What does it say? 'The Son of Man has no place to lay His head' (Matthew 8:20). Jesus Himself lived as a homeless person, and 'Christians' look down on the homeless. When they do that, they look down on Jesus!"

Michael had so much more to say (three hours' worth! And remember that he was drunk too!), but I feel like this is where I need to stop for now. I really don't remember much else besides this topic, which kept coming back throughout our conversation. It sounded like his initial rant was going to consume the entire conversation, but Michael eventually took a turn in his speech and made it known that he is a Christian, but that he hates lukewarm Christianity and "Christians" who are content to go to church on Sundays and have no other involvement with the body of Christ, who profess their faith but have no deeds to prove it.

What was really convicting for me was when he said that no one ever takes the time to ask why he's homeless and that nobody does anything to help except pray. (Don't get me wrong: prayer is powerful. But God doesn't just call us to pray and leave all the work to Him. Sometimes the answers to our prayers come from our own actions.) We can never know a person's circumstances unless we ask them, and we'll never know the kind of help they need unless we know their circumstances, and we can't know what they need prayer for if we don't know what kind of help they need. General prayer for homeless people is good and all, but the strongest prayers are the ones that address specific needs with an intense longing for that need to be fulfilled, as if the person praying were the one who needs the prayer fulfilled, which can only be accomplished by building a relationship with the person being prayed for, just like in witnessing and discipleship.

The thing that hit me the hardest was the fact that we need to do more to help homeless people. Like Michael (my small group leader, not the homeless man) said during that three-hour conversation, "The whole significance of the term 'homeless people' is the word 'people.' They may be homeless, but they're still people just like the rest of us." We, as a church body, need to spend less on building church buildings and use more of that extra money to help the poor and needy. And I personally need to devote myself more to helping the homeless, especially here in Athens, where I will be living for the majority of the next ~3 years.

BUT physical needs are not of primary importance. The gospel is the priority, but meeting physical needs is necessary in order to open doors to share the gospel. And in providing for both needs—spiritual and physical—we are to be in discipleship with each other, both teaching and learning, because God has so much to teach us before we return home to Him. Jesus Himself devoted the core of His ministry to pouring into His twelve disciples, and we are to do the same, building godly relationships with one another that build us up and push us on toward the goal, the prize promised to us in heaven.

It's amazing what you can learn from a homeless man. But James says in chapter 2, verse 5, "Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him?" We have a lot to learn, and we'll only learn it if we get out there and start serving. "For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." ~ Mark 10:45.  (This verse took on a strange new meaning that night because Michael kept saying that, since he's twice our age, he should be the one ministering to us because the older man should be the wiser one.  Although, that's not completely biblical, we didn't argue.  Before we left, I still wanted to pray for him, even after his whole rant about people asking if they can pray for him.  But God had a different idea: He wanted me to ask Michael to pray for us instead.  That caught all of us off guard, and it was a ministry in itself.  Michael had told us that he had spent the night before in deep conversation with God for well over an hour, so it was interesting getting to hear what his conversation may have been like.  And even in his prayer, he continued to teach us, so I see now why God wanted him to pray for us.  We finally went our separate ways around 11:30.)

To wrap up the story, Michael, Tucker, and I went back downtown again today and took Michael and Melinda to Five Guys for lunch, and then we went to Starbucks for Frappaccino Happy Hour.  It wasn’t much, but we had to start somewhere.  And now we’re taking them to church at Watkinsville with us Sunday morning.  I’m really excited to keep ministering to them and to keep letting them minister to me, and I hope to be able to help them in a physical way somehow.

If you want to help, please pray that Michael will be healed of his epilepsy so that he can find "a place," a job and a home.  And also pray that his wife Melinda would be able to find a job so that they can gain the funds to pay off their medical debt built up from their frequent hospital visits because of Michael's seizures.  And if you live in Athens or go to UGA, visit a few homeless people downtown yourself and get to know them.  That will influence them more than any amount of material giving.