As someone who has grown up in Los Angeles and having lived most of my life with my family here, I have some experience when it comes to working with those who are homeless and without certain necessities needed to be able to take care of oneself on a daily basis. I have been part of several churches that have had your typical feeding programs for those in their communities who needed hot meals or boxes of food to take to wherever “home was.”
Much of my call as a Christ follower has to do with helping the local church be attentive to those who are houseless or homeless. This comes from my own painful feelings of the type of home that I had growing up in LA – a home marred by alcoholism and divorce. My stepfather was unable to pay the rent on our three-bedroom home, so the landlord had to evict us, and so he was forced to have to find the two of us temporary housing near Hollywood Boulevard. For several months we lived in two different low-income motels around the neighborhood, until the youth pastor in the church I was a part of helped find a youth group home for me to live in until I graduated high school. The church and those in the church, were my surrogate parents, who loved me no matter where I lived and who I was. In their eyes I was part of the family of God.
As someone who serves in the local church, I believe that part of the work of the new commandment, that Jesus talks about in John 13:34-35, involves paying attention to those around you whether or not they are in need. There is one particular person that I’ve had the chance to come to know in my own ministry context. This person, prior to the pandemic, would sit in the front pews of the sanctuary with a large duffle bag of clothes at almost every worship service. He would often attend our monthly hot meal program provided by the church. I also know this person was particularly saddened by our church needing to move to an online worship format due to what was happening around COVID-19.
When we began to reopen as a faith community this person would be the first one to show up and help set up all of the chairs in the church parking lot. He would help check people in, take their temperatures, and give each person communion to-go containers. He was also someone who would often stay after and put everything away. He is still one of our most faithful volunteers for our early morning communion service every Sunday, and to this day is without a home here in the community. Not many people realize that he is homeless (some are keenly aware, but simply do not know how to care for him). For him, the church was his home.
This is why I find the words of Jesus’s New Commandment a powerful reminder that discipleship involves more than a hot meal or a box of food. It involves loving each other in a way that is contagious, life giving, and ultimately kingdom building. No matter what one’s circumstances are in life. My life would have taken a much different course if it were not for the church loving me and showing me what it means to be part of the kingdom of God.
