He was about my height (six foot) and heavier than me (considerably bigger gut), dressed in jeans, a jacket, and a woolen toboggan.
My wife and I had gotten out of our car and started walking toward a little church. He was walking in the same general direction, several steps away on our left.
I looked like an easy touch in my solid black preacher suit, heading to church on a chilly November Sunday morning.
Taking the initiative, I spoke first, “Good morning.”
“Mornin’.”
“Are you going to church?”
“Thinkin’ about it.”
“We’re visitors here.”
He mumbled something that sounded like “Two dollars?”
I said nothing.
More clearly this time, he said, “Could you give me two dollars?”
“Don’t give people on the street money for food. If you have the money, take them to a cafe and buy them something to eat.” Daddy was speaking to me, as he had since I was in grade school.
“I don’t think so.”
We kept walking.
He kept walking past the church building.
We had hardly found our way into a pew before I realized I had forgotten something important to tell the man.
The church we were visiting is called South Main Chapel and Mercy Center, and one way they show mercy is by providing a free lunch every Sunday after the service for anyone who cares to stay (as well as another meal or two during the week).
I blew it.
I let an opportunity slip by.
But . . .
Did the man want food . . . or money?
I’ll never know the answer.
I had several singles in my pocket, so I could have given him what he asked for. But maybe he was asking for something more substantial than two dollars. Maybe he wanted me to share myself with him.
Before I retired from college teaching, I took a couple of courses one summer at Columbia University in New York City. There, I was approached daily by homeless and hungry people on the street and on the subway. Without Daddy’s instruction, any day, I could have spent every dollar I withdrew from the ATMs around Manhattan.
Often it was easy, to shake my head or simply keep walking without acknowledging the person asking for money — and not worrying about it.
Every time I left the central campus at Columbia, I passed a grocery store near my dorm. One day, as I rounded the corner for my room, a man called out, “I need some formula for my baby.”
I couldn’t ignore that call.
“Let’s go in the store here, and I’ll buy you a case.”
“They don’t have the brand my baby needs.”
“I’m sorry.”
Did he want formula or money? Did he even have a baby?
I’ll never know the answer.
Many years earlier, I met a homeless, hungry man who didn’t let me off as easily as the man at church or the man who asked for money for formula.
I was at a religious convention in New Orleans in the years when delegates to such a meeting wore suits and ties.
One afternoon, I skipped the convention and went down to the French Quarter and found my way to the Cafe du Mondé, intending to enjoy some beignets, their famous powdered-sugar, deep-fried dessert.
I bought several of the little delicacies along with a cup of their chicory coffee, then made my way to an outdoor table. But I can’t say I enjoyed my afternoon snack.
A smallish, dark-haired man with a sunburnt face invited himself to my table. Though he could tell without asking, he did ask, “Are you a preacher here for the meeting?” I was one more among thousands of my counterparts who were roving the city between sessions.
“Yes, I am.”
Could you get me something to eat?”
“Yes. Would you like one of these cakes?”
He studied the beignets, paused, then took one.
I lost no time devouring one while he simply nibbled on his.
“I can’t eat this,” he said after a bit.
“He’s going to ask for money,” I said to myself.
“There’s a place around the corner where I could eat something.”
“OK, let’s go around there.”
He obviously had been there before.
“What’re you doing here?” the man behind the counter asked, not kindly.
“My friend here is hungry,” I said as we seated ourselves on the stools. “Fix him whatever he wants. I’ll pay for it.”
“I want a hamburger with lettuce and mayonnaise and tomato and onion.”
The counter man nodded quizzically at me:
“Nothing, thanks.”
My newfound companion devoured the burger in a few huge gulps, washing it down with iced tea.
I had done my Christian duty after sharing my precious powdered-sugar pastry and buying him a burger. Hadn’t I?
He didn’t think so.
“I will be praying for you,” I promised as I headed toward my hotel, hoping for a bit of rest before the night session at the convention center.
“Reverend, do you love me?
“Yes, I do.”
And I did.
“I don’t have a bed for tonight.”
“Where can we go to get you a bed?”
He mentioned a place, and we began walking the several blocks to a “flop house.” I inquired at the desk.
“Do you have a room for my friend for tonight?”
“I’m sorry, sir. All our beds are taken.”
“Where else can we go?”
He named another.
And another.
And another.
Each of the others was blocks and blocks removed from the previous one as the June afternoon grew hotter.
On each new leg of the journey, as my legs were tiring, I prayed more earnestly for the Lord to open the door and provide a bed for this man at the next place. I felt like the importunate widow with the judge in Jesus’s parable. But it seemed God, unlike the judge, was unmoved.
The sun was traveling quickly toward its nightly siesta as we came to yet another cheap hotel.
My partner of the afternoon looked around, nervously, then stepped inside just ahead of me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” a harsh voice cried. “I’ve told you not to come back!”
“It’s OK, sir. He’s with me. I’ll pay for his bed for tonight if you have any available.”
The clerk didn’t look happy to see me, but, in a softer voice, he quoted the price of the night’s lodging.
I paid the three or four dollars and watched as he called out a room number.
I shook my friend’s hand and patted him on the back:
“God bless you, sir.”
“Thank you, reverend.”
I never saw the man again, but he stayed with me every night in my more expensive room a few blocks away.
Likewise, the man at the South Main Chapel and Mercy Center did not leave me just because he chose not to go into the church with us.
