Faces

It was while I was sitting in our weekly prayer meeting one Monday night when I first saw them. They were faces. I saw faces peering through the huge glass windows of our storefront at The 180 Center. So many faces. They were the countenances of people who were hungry and longing. Yearning for warmth and comfort. Desperate for shelter. At that moment, my heart broke. I prayed fervently for who I saw, but the faces were not real. God surprised me with a heavenly glimpse of the faces He would someday send outside our windows.

It’s funny. You can read about the homeless, the addicted, the mentally ill and gloss over their stories. But when you see a face it’s different. The face actually confirms the reality of a person. No longer a label or a statistic, the face of someone in need is not easily forgotten. If you hear their story, it’s even more memorable. There’s no way you can deny they matter.

It was only a few years later that I saw the faces again. They were real. They came and lined up outside The 180 Center hours before we opened. We were serving New Haven as a warming center, a place of overnight shelter for the homeless during dangerously cold weather. Our hours were 10pm – 6am, but people would begin to line up for a chair to sit on or a thin mat to lie on around 7pm. As a city warming center with limited space, we could not provide beds, but we could provide a warm building, a place to sit and be safe, and a healthy snack. We were there to keep people from freezing on the streets and park benches. These were people that lived on the streets, and rejected the empty bed and meal provisions offered by the city shelter. I remember a woman who came to a town meeting and protested our service as a warming center near her neighborhood. Her voice was loud and vehement, “If one of them was freezing to death on my sidewalk, I would let them die!”  Logically, it doesn’t make sense that a homeless person would reject shelter and food given freely to them straight out of the taxpayer’s pockets. But when you hear their stories, you understand that logic is not always the guide. Sometimes the guide is fear or anger. Other times it’s racism, hatred, or paranoia. No matter what the motivation, it’s usually incomprehensible to middle class suburbia.

Jesus loves every person unconditionally. That’s something hard to comprehend and especially challenging to do. At The 180 Center we want to love that way. We fail so often, but sometimes we see a life turned around. We figured if Jesus said he would leave the ninety-nine sheep for one sheep who strays than our success rate probably doesn’t matter. Desperation is the only requirement for acceptance into The 180 Center Discipleship Program. We stand in awe as we watch what God does in the lives of those who are desperate for help.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is invited to the house of a prominent Pharisee.The Pharisee invited all his rich friends to see if Jesus would violate their religious laws by healing a sick man on the Sabbath. He only invited the sick man as part of a set-up, not because he actually cared about the man. Jesus also noticed that the Pharisee invited his wealthy friends. Jesus watched them fighting for the best seats in the house. He turned to the rich Pharisee and corrected Him, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

When we first started The 180 Center, a well-meaning Christian businessman advised us to move our location to a place where we could attract more people with money. “You’re never going to make it if you don’t get people in there who have money,” he said. We were tempted to follow his advice, but our hearts did a u-turn and trusted God’s guidance instead. By God’s grace and the generosity of so many of His people, The 180 Center has survived. Yes, we know. It doesn’t make sense!  But Jesus never seemed to care about what seemed logical, practical, or popular with men.

As we finish out 2020, let’s remember faces. Let’s not forget the faces in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, at the grocery store, and on Zoom. But most of all, let’s try to remember there are faces we don’t see. The faces of the homeless, the single mom that just lost her job, the business owner having to close his doors, the teenager battling thoughts of suicide, the lonely widow grieving, and the struggling drug addict are looking through the windows of pain hoping someone will care. Remember that each face is a person Jesus loves unconditionally. Will you accept the challenge to pray and love those that may never repay you in this lifetime?