At 8:30 a.m. I was accosted by two drunken natives teenagers on whyte avenue looking for cigarettes, a light, or any spare change I might have. First of all, I don't smoke so the cigarettes and the light were out. Next, I'm a student with a family and I survive on a bus pass and leftovers so spare change was out.
Through slurred speech and bleary eyes the boy told me he and his sister were living in a garage, hadn't had breakfast, that he was sixteen, and looking for anything I had that might help him.
He didn't look sixteen. His "sister" didn't look sixteen. There is a youth shelter two blocks from where we were standing that has housing and meals for disadvantaged teens yet they were obviously not taking advantage of it. They were more interested in cigarettes than in food but they mostly wanted money. They looked and smelled and talked and acted like tweekers or meth-heads. I didn't want to give them money. I should have taken them to the A&W across the street, used by debit card, and bought them both breakfast. But I didn't. Instead, I breathed a sigh of relief when they finally realized I wasn't going to give them anything and they stumbled off down the street in search of someone else to ask.
I'm not proud of myself. I'm not even O.K. with how I reacted to them, or to the initial internal response I had towards them as they walked towards me. I'm even less happy about the fact that I am having feelings of remorse now that I'm sitting in my nice warm office on campus and am blogging about this and what I should have done. Apparently, intellectually I know what the right thing to do is, but practically I am either unable or unwilling to put what I know into action.
I'm certainly not Peter. When a disabled begger asked him for money he replied "I don't have money but I'll give you what I do have" and then Peter heals the guy. I understand that the essence of the message of Christ is to help those who are less fortunate and to love the unlovable. The gospel's main message is "do unto others as you would have done unto you" and "whatever you do to the least of these you do to me."
Does this mean that I would wish to be ignored if I was in a similar circumstance? Does this mean that I ignored Christ today?
Put it another way. Let's just say that in some other life our family is in Calcutta India and suddenly my wife and I get hit my a car and die, leaving my three children, ages 16, 15, and 13, without any family support or help, all alone without any money in a huge city where they don't know the language. Let's say nobody knows what has happened and they end up living on the streets, unable to return home because they have no money to eat, let alone buy plane tickets. After a month, they are starving, sick, and desperate. So one morning they approach an average guy on the street and ask him if he will give them $5 for food. Would I want him to ignore them? Obviously not. I'd want him to not only feed them, but help them find the embassy, or put them on a plane home, to just do something to help them. Not only is this the essence of Christianity, it is the essence of humanity. Helping the less fortunate.
I can pontificate all I want about how America is showing its lack of humanity by not giving everyone access to healthcare. I can write about how the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is un-Christian and has no place in a supposedly Christian nation like America. I can bash on the Christian Right because they want to cut funding to welfare and food stamp programs because they feel this is only enabling the less fortunate and people like that should just go out and get a job if they don't like the way they live. But after today, I have to ask myself if I am any different.
In the mean time, while I ponder this question, I'm going back to Whyte avenue to see if I can find those two and buy them breakfast. I may not have much, but I have more than they do and if I read my Bible correctly, Jesus asks me to share what I have with those who have less.
