Being used by God

By Michael Sullivan
Published: August 15, 2008

God uses the Church when we least expect it.

Last week, a man in his 30s was found dead outside the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia’s offices in Roanoke. Every day, homeless men and women die in America’s cities. But this man died while sleeping in the shrubbery of a denomination’s regional offices. His death made the papers.

And it should have. A man in his 30s died. A father to a child. A brother, husband, son, and friend. A child of God. Too often the homeless among us die unnoticed. No announcement from a funeral home, no news story, no procession of cars with lights for others to stop and respect. But sometimes, when we least expect it, God uses the Church to make a point, and with this man’s death, the plight of homelessness came into sharp focus. 

Lynchburg is a gorgeous city of stately homes, vibrant growth, a revitalized downtown and one of the country’s best farmers’ markets. After living here several years, I clearly see why so many people see life as being simpler here.

But Lynchburg isn’t perfect, and homelessness is a challenge we face. Go downtown on a Sunday afternoon when the city is mostly abandoned, and you’ll meet our residents of the streets. They are much more numerous than you’d expect. Recently, I talked with one of them and found that he’d been living on our streets for about five years, happy to call Lynchburg home.

But don’t think that the homeless among us only live downtown. They live in every part of our beloved city. Facing the challenges of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, or just a string of bad luck, individuals and families find themselves living in a car or in an alleyway.

Too often, the Church and other agencies neglect them, not noticing, not paying attention, not reaching out with the love of God to help a fellow journeyer along the pathway of life. We get so comfortable in our pews and in our homes that we fail to hear our Lord reminding us, “When you gave the drink, when you gave the shelter, when you visited, you did so to me.”

If I read my promise at baptism correctly, to respect the dignity of every human being, I don’t see an exception for anyone. I don’t get to choose the people I love. God says to love everyone. Period. No exceptions. No ifs, ands or buts. Love everyone because God loves everyone.

And that includes the homeless among us. It’s not easy to know how to love them, to provide what they need. But right now, many of the agencies that serve the homeless in Lynchburg face hardship because of governmental cutbacks and the downturn in the economy. Unfortunately, these cutbacks come at a time when funding is extremely important; as the economy turns south, agencies serve more and more with less and less. Many of these agencies don’t serve the homeless directly but get to the root of the problem by helping with the issues that bring about much of it: alcohol and drug addiction, mental illness, lack of medical care, inadequate child care and the list goes on.

What would happen if we allowed God to use our churches more through these agencies? What would happen if we put aside our doctrinal differences and focused on the commandment to “love neighbor as self?” What would happen if we let God surprise us as we banded together to solve one of society’s challenges?

Well, I don’t know: we might just become a city on a hill, a light to enlighten the nations.  And God might use the death of One Man to surprise even the Church.