The death of a homeless man

Every other week, a group of our people from the church go down to Detroit to hand out meals to the homeless. They are led by my friend, Dave Thomas. I asked him to share about a recent experience they had down there.

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While much of the world mourned the death of Pope John Paul II, a homeless man layed on a loading dock in an alley, he was deceased. His cold lifeless body lay bundled up underneath a pile of blankets as though he had just went to sleep. Here he is, somebody's son or brother, someone’s husband or father and here he lays in an alley dead and his family may never know what happened to him.

We last saw him alive 2 weeks ago. He would always wake up to interact with us. He would always send us back to the van for another blanket or a pair of socks or another meal; he could devour one meal before you could get back to him with another. Maybe sending us back to the van for some other item was his way of keeping us there just a little longer.

But tonight he didn’t rise up to talk to us when we brought him a tray of food. I watched from the van as Ed and Terry tried to wake him up. The Holy Spirit had my eyes fixed on his lack of movement. After an unsuccessful attempt to wake him up the guys set his food down next to him and came back to the van. Several times I tried to drive away but the Holy Spirit stopped me. My eyes were fixed on the bundle of blankets where he laid. I couldn’t just drive away. Ed finally said “What ever the Holy Spirit is telling you to do you had better do it”. I immediately got out of the van to try to wake him up again. Ed came with me. We took a second tray of food knowing he would want more then one. I called him a few times to wake him and when he still didn’t move I kicked his foot to wake him. When I did the blanket came up and off his foot and a smell rose up, bad enough to tell us he was either very sick or he was no longer with us. Inside I wanted to pull the blanket off his head to see if he was ok but I was afraid of what I might see. We called 911 and said a prayer but deep down inside I think we knew he was gone.

How sad it must be to die cold and alone. Perhaps afraid, knowing that death was immanent. No one there that you can call to get help for that crushing pain in your chest or fever that seems to burn you alive. How horrible that no one was there to help him in his time of greatest need. But nevertheless it was his time and no one could stop that. He was probably one of a thousand homeless in a thousand different places across America that lay dead in some obscured place. This is probably the end that will come to most homeless people, to die cold and alone in an alley or an abandoned building somewhere unless God grants them the grace to come off the street and out of this life style. Seeing their life and their end, it is all the more important that we Christians do all that we can to make their life a little better without judgment of how they got there. Jesus said “What you do for the least of these my brothers you have done it unto me”. I think it was appropriate that we the chosen of God found this man at the unction of the Holy Spirit. It was as though God Himself picked him up out of the alley and delivered him to have a proper burial until the Day of Judgment.

Although homeless, nameless and an apparent nobody, this man was of the utmost importance to all Christians. In his death he was more important then the Pope himself. Why? Because the Pope was a dignitary and in this he represented the dignitaries of the world. He was a Catholic and represented all the Catholics of the world. But this mans death represented all the unsaved people of the world, not that he was not saved, I don’t know, but that he died cold and alone and in a dark and lonely place. The Bible says of the unsaved that they too are dead in their trespass and sins and I tell you that the stench of their sins as putrefying flesh rise before the nostrils of God continually. But we are the Called of God, a people chosen by God. You are the light of the world and the light on a hill cannot be hid. Through you the world shall not walk in darkness. You are the salt of the earth and those whom you touch with the gospel of Christ shall not see death. Without you the world is a graveyard full of dead men’s bones and with you the world has the light of life. Jesus said “All power is given unto me”. As he gave us the authority to make disciples.

You only are the caretakers of this world, you only have the bread of life in one hand and the word of life in the other and both are life giving only when we give them out.

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Thanks Dave.