THIS PEN

About a month ago, in the thick of the Christmas season, I sat in the performance area of Ebenezer's Coffee House located in the basement.  Ebenezer's is located in Capitol Hill, DC and is a former crack house that my church (well not my church it is God’s, but I do attend there) National Community Church (NCC) purchased.  For a number of years now NCC has been doing something called “InService.”  Every Wednesday the homeless are invited to share in a meal, Bible study and fellowship with other followers of Christ.  The homeless in my city now have a Bible study in a former crack house!  I love that!

I have been attending InService for several months now and to be honest it is a challenge.  Building relationships across cultural and economic barriers is not easy, at least not for me.  It takes time and patience.  Perhaps that is true for all relationships though, thus making InService not that unique.

Anyway, getting back to my experience a month ago I was struck by what took place at InService that night.  Struck by the fact that the homeless, the neglected and ignored in our cities, have so much to offer us.  One of our homeless men that comes on Wednesday nights, Ivan Johnson, performed an act that leaves me humbled, convicted and challenged!  He took the last bit of money in his pocket and bought a package of ink pens.  You might ask yourself why would Ivan decide to do this?  Well he showed up to our group, mentioned that it was the Christmas season and that we wanted to give all of us a gift.  He then explained that he wanted to give us each a pen so that when we were reading the Bible and something hit us we would have something to write it down with or if we had spiritual thoughts throughout the day we would have something to capture it so that we could look back on it for encouragement.  And this he did with the last dollar to his name.  Amazing!

Part of me wants to frame this pen as a reminder for what it means to give out of my poverty!

Luke 21:1-4: As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others.

⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”