The Homeless Man & The Sermon
Ryan W. McClellan, MS
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"I have spent so much time trying to be normal that I forget how absolutely fascinating the abnormal can be" - Me, May 4th, 2019
For as long as I can remember, me and my mother have shared an unspeakable bond. She is my best friend, my mentor, and my savior.
But I am not here to discuss her.
I am here to discuss a homeless man, and my mother just happened to bear witness to what is quite facetiously the most interesting moment of my life.
He Was Tall, I Remember That
We were sitting in Barnes & Noble, in that odd little Starbucks atrium they all withhold. Have you ever noticed that their coffee always tastes like soil?
As I recused through some homework, I noticed out of the peripheral of my eye: a tall, dark-skinned man with scraggly nails and a dirty shirt.
Of course, we all have this inborn tenacity (whether birthed with it or learned over time) to judge the homeless; we fear them for some odd reason.
I have yet to hear of any tale in history where a homeless man does anything "wrong" except burden us with inquiries. Side story before I continue:
I once walked two blocks in the pouring rain just to talk to a homeless man, to give him some muffins and water, and boy, did he enjoy the hell out of that.
Anyway, this man was clearly not deranged, though it would look much like it. He was sitting cross-legged with a bottle of water and, yes, he was talking to himself.
Maybe He Wasn't
I decided to let it slip my mind until curiosity overtook the cat.
I noticed he was sitting with several Bibles, the tags still on them. After a few inclinations (in this instance, perpetual eavesdropping), I realized he was not talking to himself. Rather, this man was in a Church, and he was the sermon.
It was at this point that I became rather fascinated with this man. I have always had a soft spot for the homeless, but then it occurred to me: was he even?
The glasses he bore were fresh, and at one point he even took them off and cleaned them with his dirt-stained shirt; the Bibles were tagged, meaning he had had the capacity to locate the section on religious topics.
And of course, somehow he had the ability to order a glass of water, with a receipt half-soaked from the precipitation, indicating something odd to me...
How Often Do We See This?
How often do we associate the homeless as uneducated, burdened, and dangerous? How often do we have a chance to observe them in daily life?
Well, I was more fascinated about the religious rantings of this man than anything. Homeless or not, he was surely crazy, right?
Two Hours Later...
Two hours later, he was still babbling to himself. At one point, he even stood up and began to preach the word of Christ to the empty atrium.
Yeah, it was at that point that I decided to abandon any inclination of danger. So, I stood up, said to my mother: "One sec, I'm just curious," and approached him.
I pulled up a chair as he peered through me (not specifically with eyes; they were glazed from his foggy glasses), and my first warning to walk away occurred:
He said:
"I don't trust you."
Mind you, my heart was racing, but I just had to see what this man was about.
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I relayed to him some semblance of trust:
"I just saw you were reading Philippians, 9:11. I'm a man of God myself."
Mind you, at that point, I really was not. Sure, I had always held a deep fascination with the Bible, religion, and God, as we all should.
Not because we need to be either-or, but because whether we like it or not, it is a part of history, and as human beings, we are allowed to believe what we believe.
And I believed fully in this instance that this man was worth talking to.
So I Listened...
Mind you, this was the point where I truly fathomed that this man was insane to some greater-or-lesser extent, as he did not speak to me at all.
Rather, I sat there, observing, an ethnographer at heart, as he preached.
Finally, I had to ask: "Can I join you?"
400,000 People?
He did not answer my question, but he did enliven me with some choice words:
"I am calling upon all 400,000 of you to join me in the Union Of Christ."
He stood, almost in a dramatic poise, and began to "preach" to his 400,000 Churchgoers. At this point, it was clear: he was not in a Starbucks atrium.
Of course, I did not stay to listen.
I had heard all I needed to. I walked back to my mother, and as I peered up (nonchalantly, I might add), I noticed all eyes were no longer on this man.
Rather, the twenty or so patrons of the Starbucks section were looking at me, curious and perhaps even a bit confused.
It was at that point that I wrote those choice words you read above:
"I have spent so much time trying to be normal that I forget how interesting the abnormal is...and if this man is in Church in his mind, then I believe him."
Five Months Later
Roughly five months later, I returned to that same Starbucks, and as I got out of my car, I noticed a familiar-looking man. It was then that I saw his scraggly nails.
It was him. He looked in my direction, pacing toward the Barnes & Noble, and in an instinctive, albeit human-centered notion, he waved and smiled.
I did the same.
Now, if you were to ask me what the moral of this tale is, it is not that religion should be embraced, nor is it that we should have sympathy for the homeless.
We need to realize that we will not all see the same thing through different eyes; that adage is wrong. Rather, on occasion, we require to fathom human nature.
Many find it "weird," but I think that is what makes it so fascinating. And, if he was standing in a Church filled with 400,000 people that fateful day, then so was I...
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