John’s dark, pain-filled eyes pierced my heart. He stood on Lafayette Square facing the White House. His back was to St. John’s Episcopal Church, a quaint but elegant yellow building.
He asked the usual questions homeless people ask us when we start conversations with them. Where are you from? How long does it take you to get here? How often do you come down?
Then he shared his battle with depression and his other afflictions. I asked him if he ever turned to the church. This is his story:
“I did turn to a church once. It was a Sunday morning. My depression was real bad. I needed to talk to somebody. So I decided go into a church, stay through the service and talk to the pastor after it was over. I was dressed pretty much like you see me now, army jacket, jeans. They weren’t even all that dirty. I had just washed them a couple of days before.”
“Just after I walked in the door these men in suits came up to me and said, ‘We’re sorry, but you’ll have to leave. You’re not dressed appropriately for this service.’ I couldn’t believe my ears. I never felt so hurt in my life. All I wanted was to go to church and talk to the pastor. To get a little comfort, y’know. So, I left. Then I did this.”
John thrust his arms out of the sleeves of his fatigue jacket and showed me the scars from where he slit his wrists. None of my lame words could console his disappointment in the church. I gave him the name and address of a church where I knew he would be welcome and asked him to try again, but I don’t know if he ever did.
I never saw John again.
That church let John down. That church let Jesus down. How often do we as the church let down those who most need our help, who desperately need to see Jesus in us, who are hungry to receive God’s unconditional love? From similar stories I’ve heard, it’s more often than I care to think about.
John’s story should fuel the fires of compassion that burn in all of us who share the desire to reach out to the last, the least, the lost, the lonely, and the left out.
Nobody is “inappropriate” for the love of Jesus.