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Lunch With JJ: Lessons from a homeless man

by James Barringer  
1/27/2010 / Christian Living

One important thing to know about God is that he will mess up your life.

It's the good kind of messing up, of course, the kind where he completely destroys the way you think or the priorities you have, and you suddenly realize how foolish you had been back when you thought you had it all figured out. That's what God is doing for me lately. Specifically, he's got me looking at the area of social justice, the way that Christians should be the world's leading force for eliminating poverty and hunger.

Sometimes I go to McDonalds for lunch, and I've periodically noticed some homeless folks sitting out front near the sign. Lately I've been feeling like I should go talk to them. Maybe you know the feeling, where you don't have any idea what to do but know you need to do something. One day last week, I had my chance. I pulled in to go get my McNuggets and saw a guy sitting with his back to the sign. I knew God wanted me to go talk to him, but to be really honest, I was scared to death. Should I offer to buy him lunch? What should I say? Was he going to be upset when he found out I didn't have much money to give him? Heart thudding, I wandered over and sat down next to the guy. Over the next hour and a half, I would find out exactly what God was up to.

The man's name was JJ. He's been homeless since 2004, living in parks and woods around town with a few of his friends. He was more than happy just to have me next to him, talking about whatever came to our minds, and over the next hour and a half or so we talked about a little of everything.

The first thing that struck me about JJ and his friends was the incredible community they have. There are half a dozen of them who live together, and they share everything. After we'd been talking for a few minutes, JJ's friend Marty came up and said hi. The thing that struck me most about JJ and Marty is that they were all smiles. If all you saw was their faces, not the long hair or the ratty clothes, you would never in a million years guess they were homeless. They were thrilled just to be alive, out in God's creation, living with each other and cherishing what little they have.

When I say they share everything, I mean it. If anyone makes money during the day, he buys food for everyone to eat. JJ had made enough the day before to buy two beers - most of them are alcoholic, but I think there's a good chance you or I would be too, under those conditions - and he gave one of them to Marty. Marty runs errands for everybody - "He's never said no when I asked him to walk to the store [a mile round trip] and get something for me," JJ told me, since JJ is on crutches and can't do it himself. One of the guys, Black Mike, cooks for everyone. When they get chased out of their camps and have to move, they move together. It's the kind of community that should make us in the church sick with jealousy, because that's the way Jesus tells us that we should be.

After a while of talking, I got hungry, and asked JJ and Marty if I could get them anything from McDonalds. Both of them wanted a coffee, and JJ asked for an apple pie as well. When I stood up to go in, Marty said, "Are you going to buy yourself lunch in there? Cause I have some food in my backpack if you want it." That's right - a homeless man offered me his food. I was so humbled that I couldn't even take him up on it. I walked into the restaurant holding back tears, in awe of that kind of generosity. I couldn't help but wonder if Marty and JJ know something the rest of us don't about what really matters in life.

JJ was also fascinating to me because living homeless was his choice. He had relatives in Pennsylvania, and the last time he visited them, they had offered to take him in, but he wouldn't hear of it. He came back to Florida, back to being homeless, of his own volition. Basically, he rejected everything that our capitalist economy is based on. He would rather live in "poverty," rich in community, than spend his time working. Now, I know other people who don't want to work, but they're just plain lazy - they want all the benefits of a capitalist society, a house and a Wii and a car, but without any of the obligations. JJ is content to have none of those things, none of the blessings and none of the obligations.

It's as if he knows, although I doubt the thought has ever occurred to him, that the things we think of as benefits and blessings are not really much of anything after all. I mean, there's no harm in owning a house, except that it usually means I'm not living in community with other people anymore. Instead of living in a dorm with all my friends like I did in college, I live in a rented room several miles from the nearest friend and twenty miles from most of them - is it any wonder that most people consider college the best years of their lives? There's no harm in owning a Wii, except that it's easy to retreat into video games while ignoring the people who should matter more to me. It may be hard to imagine life without many of our technological conveniences, but people did live without them for thousands of years. Are we really that much better off for having them?

I don't mean to romanticize what JJ and his friends live with. It is a very tough existence; as I said, most of them are (perhaps understandably) alcoholics. There's periodic conflict in their group, just like in the rest of society. But I do think it's significant that, given the offer of sanctuary by his family, JJ turned it down to come back to his community. I wonder what in life could convince any of us to live in circumstances like that.

If we really were serious about re-creating the early church, I think our community would look an awful lot like what JJ and his friends have. I don't mean that we would all be homeless, although Acts does record large numbers of people selling everything they own to share with each other. Does that make you uncomfortable, in this capitalistic and materialistic culture? I think it should. My time with JJ showed that we've all swallowed capitalistic ideals far more deeply than we will ever realize. The things we schedule our lives around - work, money, the clock - all mean absolutely nothing to a homeless man. Do we really think that our set of priorities is superior to his?

Because of this, we all have a very important lesson to learn when it comes to helping homeless people. It seems we tend to approach them as if we have something they need, as if we are the saviors and they are the helpless ones. I felt this myself; I was afraid that JJ wouldn't want to talk to me if I didn't have money for him, assuming that money was the most important thing to him. In reality, he's a human just like the rest of us, valuable to us and to God because he was created in God's image. Even though he goes to church and lives in community, he loves relationships, and he talked to me for an hour and a half without knowing, or seeming to care, whether I was going to give him any money at all. We need to come alongside the homeless as equals, as brothers and sisters, not as charity cases that we can buy off with our big checkbooks or clothe with our unwanted castoffs. Maybe we're the ones who actually need the help.

Needless to say, God filled my head with a lot of thoughts during and after that one conversation. He's asking me a lot of tough questions about the role of possessions in my life and about how my life is structured around work and money. He's challenging me to get to know my neighbors better, to spend more time with people than with amusing myself. In short, he's messing up my life. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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