Thank you, but I think I’ll just stay homeless, were not the words I expected to hear when the church offered to put our friend in a motel.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I sat on the sidewalk with him, leaning against the red brick fellowship hall, as he took out rolling papers and made a cigarette.

It was Senior Luncheon day, and the eldest members of our church were filing in.

Nodding hello to them as they passed, he exhaled scented tobacco, explaining to me that the police where he lived on the street looked after him. Each time he went missing, they always found him to make sure he was alright.

He was often “arrested” to keep him from freezing to death. They’d saved his life countless times, in ways that made him emotional with gratitude to recall.

They’re my family, he said, watching me finally understand that the motel room we’d offered him was outside their jurisdiction. There would be no one to protect him.

Later I learned the policemen had tried for years to rescue our friend, even paying for rehab out of their own pockets, but his brokenness ran too deep.

Finally an officer speaking from experience advised me, Love him where he is, like he is.

That day outside the church, one of the last silver-haired saints to enter in looked down at our friend seated on the concrete, smiled and said, How old are ya, young man?

The answer was 54…

Close enough! You can be my guest to the senior luncheon.

And with that, he stumped out his smoke in the grass, grinned toothless and happy, and went in with the saints to eat like a king, where he was, like he was.

 

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Then the King will say, ‘I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me a drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me in. I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.’ … And the righteous will ask Him, ‘But Lord, when did we ever see You this way?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Let Me assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’

~ Jesus

{Matthew 25:35-36}

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Then Jesus said to the one who had invited Him, When you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, because they might invite you back, and you would be repaid. Instead, when you host a banquet, invite those who are poor, maimed, lame, or blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

~ Jesus

{Luke 14:12-14}