Jesus.

his name is "jesus". or at least, that is how he introduced himself to me the first day i met him. not the spanish pronunciation that is so prevalent, but "jesus", the way you would hear it if you walked into an american church any given sunday. so that is what i call him. this big, tall guy who makes grand gestures with his arms and eyes while talking, and whose mental illness keeps him on the edge of society.

the first time i met him he simply asked for a couple of sandwiches. the next time i saw him, he was eating in a food court below where he usually sits, because it was raining. but then i started seeing him regularly and we starting having discussions about creating the world, and what it feels like for him to live in a "diseased" place, with "diseased" people when he is the only one who is not full of "disease". "jesus" refuses to go anywhere. he does not want to live inside because it is uncomfortable for him to do so, and he does not really want to be helped because--honestly--who can help "jesus"?

there have been some problems lately with "jesus" which led to us having to have him FD-12'ed, or involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward. we visited with him a couple times there. the halls are dark, and remind me a little bit of the inside of a prison. after all, the building is right next to a prison, and when our clients who are mentally ill do something illegal, this is where they are taken, instead of prison, to try to get them the treatment they need.

a couple days after he got taken to the psych ward, "jesus" got released and the nurse called us and asked if we could pick him up and take him to his psych intake at a local medical facility. we agreed, and our intern and i hopped into the van and drove over to pick him up. on our way to his appointment he asked us if we could stop and get him something to eat--he was hungry and thirsty. so we took "jesus" to get something to eat. after his intake and doctor's appointments we took him to a laundromat because he needed some clean clothes to wear. and as i was talking to him throughout the day it hit me that these were the simple things that Jesus instructs us to do in matthew 25.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"

i don't say this to "toot my own horn", but rather to tell you of a gift that God gave me last week. sometimes i get really frustrated with the state of the world. i get angry that sin perpetuates, the powerful win and the weak on the margins get forgotten, lost or hurt. i get frustrated sometimes with the way that nonprofits are sometimes poorly run, or how the money for these nonprofits is never distributed or shifted to the bottom of the priority list. and i was getting increasingly frustrated last week.

but then God reminded me of the reason i do what i do. the reasons that we all are to care for those on the margins. because when we do so, we are caring for Him. and as i sat with "jesus" and ate lunch with this man who has been pushed to the side and called worthless, i don't think it was an accident that i remembered matthew 25.

i once heard dave andrews--a great speaker and fellow servant and follower of Jesus say that it is comforting for us to know that Jesus tells us to "give, invite, look after, clothe and visit" not to "heal, redeem and fix". we have an easy job--Jesus asks us to do for others things that we CAN do. i get so caught up in my frustrations over things that i CAN'T do, that i often neglect the things that i CAN do. and that day in mcdonalds, Jesus (and "jesus") reminded me of the basics.