I gave Jesus a ride to work today. He told me he worked at 61st and Peoria selling cigarettes.

I gave Jesus a ride to work today.  When he got in my car he introduced himself as “Marcus” but I knew he was Jesus.  He told me he worked at 61st and Peoria selling cigarettes. 

I was on my way to work and saw him walking on the street in the cold.  I was careful; before I offered him a ride I put my wallet in my coat pocket and slid my bag with my iPad behind the seat.  He was friendly and inconvenient and inappropriate. The moment he sat in the car he thanked me and then cranked the heat high without asking.  A few minutes later he asked me to turn some country music on the radio.  I hate country music — inconvenient and inappropriate.  He asked me to stop at McDonalds and when I offered to buy him his sandwich he asked if I would buy him coffee, too -— with six packets of sugar and six packets of cream. The nerve of this guy.

Ironically, he did a better job asking me about myself than I did asking him.  He told me he didn’t go to church because the churches he’s attended didn’t say what he wanted to hear.  “But, if I do go to church I want to go with you.  When are you going to take me to church and have me in your house in Broken Arrow?”

I found myself back-tracking.  I wasn’t looking to invest my life . . . I was only looking to do a good deed and then get on with my day.  I found myself thinking of people and/or churches in his area I could contact who were “better able” to help him.  I gave him my work number instead of my cell hoping he wouldn’t call.

As he finished eating he said, “I never eat the last bite — I always leave it for the homeless because they don’t have anything.”   

Calvin G. Roso © December 2013