The Athens City Council is considering adopting a new measure that would ban panhandlers from asking people for money in downtown Athens. My naivete was shattered a year ago when I finally asked Mike, a local homeless guy I'd gotten to know, what he did with the money he got from students. Mike's reply? "Get drunk or go buy a crack rock two blocks north of here." "How much is the cheapest crack here in Athens?," I asked him. "About 7 bucks, that's why these guys only ask for 25 or 50 cents at a time. Barely anybody's gonna walk away without givin' you at least somethin', and you can round up $7 pretty quickly." I've spoken to several other homeless guys over the years and I hear the same stories.

Don't misread what I've written above. The sad truth is that I...or is "we" a more appropriate pronoun...avoid "these people" and where they hang out like the plague. We actually walk out of our way so we don't have to encounter the reality of intense suffering in the very midst of our lives of relative luxury. We make up our little "personal policies" against giving to them. I ignore them many times, refuse them other times, help them when I feel moved to pity, and (regrettably) seldom enter into their brokenness and suffer alongside of them. And sometimes sin deceives me twice...I give them a dollar or two just to shut them up so I can keep walking, or eating, or reading without being interrupted or having to listen to their sob story (which admittedly is nothing more than a fabrication most of the time).

Why do we respond to homeless people like we do? Yeah, sin is involved. Yeah, we are far more protective and selfish about our time than our wallets. And we acknowledge that a simple change in His gracious providence and God could be providing our daily bread through the generosity of strangers walking by our cardboard sign. But something else is in play here, I think. In most cases, I really don't believe it's loving to give panhandlers money. Isn't it simply financing their enslavement to sin that is physically and spiritually and mentally destroying their entire being?

Homelessness confounds me. I'm frustrated by how perennial it is. I wish it was more black and white. I don't understand the wisdom of God in allowing it to persist. I get angry when I consider that it is yet another disasterous effect of the Fall. What are we, the people of Christ, to do? What does mercy here look like? What shape does love take on? Is our hesitation in acting legitimate, or are we just afraid and reluctant to OWN UP to our calling to daily deny ourselves and pick up OUR crosses and follow the One who pours out to us "new mercies every morning"?

I just think they're dirty, but just in the literal sense. I like clean. I don't hold being homeless or poor against anyone, unless I know they're able to work and refuse to. When my new heart was truly new, I used to stop and talk with homeless people downtown. That was when I wasn't so concerned and scheduled with the cares of this world. Now I'm fighting not to be so busy, but I confess it's not to make more time for homeless and penniless people.

There was a time when I didn't care what a beggar would do with the money I gave him or her. It is our duty to give, and it is God's prerogative to judge their use of my giving. If it is in your heart to give, then give freely and thank God for the grace that has taught your heart the meaning of stewardship of God's kingdom.

We are free to give.