My Homeless Friend Steve and Our Theology of Excess

We have an hour to spare. I wasn’t even looking for him. “That’s him, that’s Steve”, I gasp to my spouse.

In a parking lot, leaning up against the light post, wearing the same dirty green, army jacket he wore the last time I talked to him.  His furry friend still close.

Nothing has changed, except maybe his sign. Though it seems I have lived through whirlwinds and ten lifetimes since then.

“Want to stop?” My husband offers.  And there is a discomfort always, when stepping low from our safe lifestyles, to the level playing ground of reality and hurting pavement.

Like the widows mite and the rich men, I take out what I plan to offer him. And give it. It’s nothing.  Though his dimples sink deep….in gratitude and appreciation.

Thankful for his graciousness, I ask myself…

Why do I keep stopping to visit with Steve? Is it for me? Am I the one needing to listen, learn, be in his presence…more than him needing anything from me? (Read more HERE)

By now I realize, I am the rich one who gives small portions of what I have to make me feel better….not the widow who in her lack, giving everything out of love and trust.


And the reality of my covetousness has been grievous to me, lately.

An then I wonder…was our last visit was a lie? Would he change his name?  Would he be drunk this time?  But Steve staggers to his feet from his sleeping slumber, shaking hands with both of us….reminding me again of his name “Steve”.

No, he was not some man posing to be homeless, like others have in the past. This was his reality.

He talks to my husband, as if they are best friends sitting around our kitchen table for a visit. Steve is smart, witty, funny. We laugh as he shares the same fact from our last hour-long conversation, every detail exactly the same.

Yes, Steve did not change…though I often do.

And he wasn’t drunk or mentally ill, like many people claim all the homeless are.  He was human.  Maybe it was me that was artificial, and felt insignificant….while I give him my scraps, and stands there content, with nothing.

And why should I try justify my wealth and false religion, being greater than God?  Wanting more than he had? 

I keep hearing Him whispering the truth of this cross-bearing Gospel, though at times I admit….I wish I was deaf.

For, it is one thing to want a life surrendered in selflessness…it is quite another to strip ourselves from all that has been protecting us and lay ourselves barren before our Savior.

Steve shares more about his friend who passed recently. How he died and how Steven had to carry him out with two police and the coroner, from under the bridge.

I stop, realizing, this isn’t a dream.  This isn’t some SCI movie.  This is reality. People die every day and we don’t see it.

Maybe it’s easier to live blind, than to ask God to illuminate our vision?

Steve shares how a store kicked him out because he was going through their nearby dumpster.  “I wasn’t dumpster diving, I promise.” I don’t care.  I have stooped lower than that…if I am honest.

And if I was hungry, I would probably do worse.  And mine would be a crime bigger than looking for the daily thrown out food of us so-called prospering Americans.

I think about Jesus and if he was here in the flesh, alive.  Would he be sitting with his friend in Starbucks, talking about silly stuff to pass time by…or would he be out in the streets, looking for, and healing the hurting…like He has calls us to do?

And why does selfishness prevail in us? Why does the lie of our comfort-theology blind us from the real-scripture telling us to go out and serve the poor, help the homeless?

And so Lord, I pray as I think of Steve; as I see his crystal blue yes, his dimple, and the cry for help of a man who has simply been guilty of loving those who hurt him….

Will you make us like you Lord?  Will you change our hearts to not only feed ourselves with latte’s and pastries….but see those hungry for spiritual food all around us.

Will you open our eyes…even if it hurts, even if it’s painful to hear the cries of a man who carried out his best friend in a body bag.

Will you give us compassion, like you had, before you went to those who needed a physician?

And lastly, will you change our twisted theology.  Our theology of comfort, of gaining wealth, and thinking that if we accept Jesus, we will get to earn more materialism….

When the truth is…you have called us to die, give to the poor, fight for justice, and live a life of empty, selfless surrender.

And I want to be like you God.  Help me Lord, help all of us.

Who is God calling you to see today?  Your family?  A child?  A neighbor?  A friend?  A needy person?