After the last worshipper had come down the stairs and I had shaken the last hand or given the last hug, I walked over to this man who was sitting over in the corner of the room and sat down next to him. I introduced myself to him and he told me his name was Warren Anderson. Warren looked rather worn, and dry and obviously was very down on his luck. He proceeded to tell me a fairly long story about an interview he had on Friday, how he had traveled up from Richmond by bus, but he was unsure if he would get the job or not. He produced documentation to show the interview had "really" happened, showed me a Greyhound bus stub for his trip north, showed me his ID (driver's license) to "prove" who he was, and showed me his wallet in which he counted out $17.50, telling me that he needed an additional $20 to buy his bus ticket home.  

I come to DC (via 3 years at the seminary in VA) via New York City, where I lived for 18 years. The homeless issue in NYC is on a magnitude far greater then it is here in DC, although it is quite bad here too. And I am somewhat ashamed to admit, but I have a fairly hard and cold heart toward homeless people asking me for money from all of those years in NY. This is a growing edge for me. Priests and churches are also very common "targets" for homeless scams, where individuals come with well documented (yet fraudulent) stories that tug at the heart strings, asking for money. There is also the risk that you or your organization become known and targeted as softees...an easy mark for a quick $20, and the line at the door can quickly form, with each story being more and more complex.

So I had all those things and prejudices' running through my head as Warren was talking to me. And then something happened. I thought, what if...what if he is actually telling me the truth and my hard-heartedness is getting in the way of helping this guy get home? What if I am consigning this man to a below-freezing night out until he finds someone to help him get some money to get home? I said to myself "Maybe this should be your Lenten discipline...to not be so suspicious and trust in God more." So I took out my wallet and gave him $20. I looked him in the eye and said twice "please use this for the bus". I blessed him and watched him leave the building. The vast majority of my being believes that I was taken, but there is a small part of me that has hope that I wasn't and that I actually helped Warren get home last Sunday night. Maybe that's a fantasy....maybe.  

And I think that is one of the things Jesus is talking about in his discussion with Nicodemus in today's Gospel. We hear this Pharisee, Nicodemus come and question Jesus. This is actually an amazing occurrence as the Pharisees were the keepers, the observers of the law. Pharisees actually means "the separated ones", those who separate themselves from the world to live according to the thousands of coded rules they believed God demanded they live by. And yet, this separate one, who had dedicated his life to what he believed to be God's law, came and visited this nomadic rabbi/preacher to ask him what was going on? Nicodemus knew something was missing from his life. And Jesus replies by saying "very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" and later "very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit." Here we have a translation issue, for if we read an annotated Bible, we find a footnote after born from above and born of water and Spirit. And that's because the translators have made a choice for us.