Brandon Clements

Luis is one of our homeless friends at Midtown who is really a part of our family. He has been coming for months and God has been really changing his life. It has been quite incredible to watch–he is a different man than he was six months ago. He got baptized a few weeks back, which was…amazing.

Yesterday he came walking up to the Homeless Block Party we were putting on with large McDonald’s bags. Amidst a few confusing looks, he puts them down discretely and pulls out 40 cheeseburgers to help feed the homeless.

Are you kidding me?

A homeless man in our family grasps the Gospel to the point that he spends who knows how much of the money he made working this week on a slew of cheeseburgers to help feed his fellow homeless? He did so knowing that he would have no place to sleep that night. No guarantee that he would be able to afford food the rest of the week.

Wow.

And then he walks up to the person running the clothing donations table and says, “I need some pants for work. But wait until everyone else goes through them, and if there are any left I will take them.”

What may be the most incredible part came when I sat down with him to talk for a while at a table. “Luis, I heard you brought a bunch of cheeseburgers to share with everyone today?”

“No…no. No comprende.” he said smiling. He legitimately did not want anyone to know or glorify him for doing that.

After I convinced him that I knew about it, he told me not to tell anyone. “Luis, thanks for doing that, you didn’t have to.”

“Why not? It is for God. And I wanted to…we do this together.”

My heart is melting and running all over the hot asphalt by now. He just did one of the most selfless things I can think of from the pure motives of loving Jesus and others, and he wants absolutely no credit or recognition at all. And just in case you forgot, he’s homeless.

All I could think of as I sat there and looked into his brown, wrinkly eyes is “He gets it. He really gets it.” And unfortunately, in the midst of that ridiculously humbling and challenging experience, I began to wonder, “Do I get it?” Even when I do luck up and do something selfless, its usually because my wicked heart just wants someone to pat me on the back and tell me how good I am to have done so. It is a funny and beautiful thing that God can take a homeless man that you have been “ministering” to and use him to completely smack you in the face.