Bursting the Old Wineskin

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. – Proverbs 3:27

The world as we know it is passing away.  Every moment of every day, the world as we have known it ends and becomes something new that we have not experienced or expected.  It is an adventure, to be held lightly even as we love and appreciate it.  To the Creator and Giver of Life we cling, honoring and recognizing Him in all things. 

I suppose my first question would be why I would think to “withhold good” from anyone.  I have done this, sometimes through sheer thoughtlessness and stupidity.  A man named Fernando started coming to our church.  He was a decent person but clearly troubled.  He was a Texas native with a very famous, at the time, last name, though I’m sure he was not closely related to a one-time mayor of San Antonio.  In fact, Fernando was homeless.  He was staying at a shelter, at least part of the time.  Other times, I don’t know where he stayed.  Somehow he managed to always be clean and neat when he came to church.  His clothes were not those of the typical homeless person.  He wore a nice pair of Tony Lamas, clean, unfaded jeans, a crisp western-style shirt, and a Resistol hat.  To see him walking around town, except for his backpack, one would think him simply another hard-working local of Mexican heritage. 

During church services, Fernando usually stayed in the back, not because he was shy, but because he liked to worship exuberantly.  He would step out of the back pew and stand in the open area behind it where he would raise his hands, kneel, jump, or, occasionally, dance.   Back there he would not distract others or draw unnecessary attention to himself.  Most of the time he was perfectly coherent and reasonable, but, once in a while, he would draw me aside and ask me in a whisper if I could see the devil on the toe of his left boot.  “He’s right there.  Do you see him?”  I would have to confess that I did not, but I would pray for him and ask the Lord to protect him from all evil. 

One Wednesday night after service, Fernando caught up with us in the parking lot and asked if we could give him a ride out a restaurant on the other side of I-35.  He hopped in the van with us and talked cheerily as we drove along.  It was getting kind of late and where we lived was close to a thirty minute drive down the freeway.  I was ready to get home and crash after a long day.  Fernando wanted us to come in the restaurant and have a cup of coffee with him.  I begged off and dropped him in the parking lot, not really thinking too much about Fernando’s circumstances.  As we came off the ramp onto the freeway, my wife said, “He probably didn’t have money to eat.”

Yes, I am an idiot.  I have always regretted that I did not at least hand him a few bucks, but it would not have killed us to go in with him and see that he got some decent, hot food and talk with him a while.  I’m not sure if I ever saw Fernando again.  He would come and go.  I know he wasn’t at church the following Sunday because I was looking to make up for my insensitivity.  I just don’t remember beyond that.  In my weak defense, I would say that my wife was a little scared of Fernando.  There was no reason to be.  He was a featherweight at most, not much heavier than my wife and about the same height, but, more to the point, there was nothing fear-inducing about him.  He had only a troubled heart, not a dark one.  I can also honestly say that all he had to do was ask me straight up, and I would have helped him.  Fernando, though, was not that kind of man.  Just asking for the ride had been a lot for him. 

My brother may have gone hungry that night, and that is bad.  Worse was that I stupidly failed a test.  I’ve helped people since then, some possibly more deserving than Fernando, some probably less.  Paul all but quotes the proverb in Galatians 6:10, So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.  Opportunity – not obligation, not requirement.

Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due?  Why is good “due” anyone?  If this world is all there is, if we are nothing but material beings, random creations of a pointless process, no one could be due any good.  It is, as Spock might say, illogical.  However, if we recognize the Person within the person then we see immediately why the need of a brother or sister is an opportunity for us, why owing love makes perfect and sublime sense. 

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. – 2 Corinthians 5:16-17