Some Drunks Guys Out Front of my House

I struggle a lot with the idea of community. My church title is "Community Pastor." But sometimes I don't really like people as much as I should. They can be a real pain. Pastors aren't supposed to say stuff like that but all of them feel it.

My wife and I live in a large house in the 'hood. We like to think we bought the house to use as a "ministry tool." We have self-righteous delusions of gradeur about the house. Dreams that it might one day house haitian orphans, hurricane victims and single moms with blacks eyes and five kids. But most of the time, it is just a large heating bill for rooms that we don't use. It's not that we don't want to have more people stay. We just don't want the "wrong people" in our house. It is our space. Our sanctuary. Our belonging.

Yesterday some guys invaded our space. At about 6pm as I was leaving out the front door, a guy in his twenties yelled something incomprehensible at me from a maroon minivan with no license plates in front of my house. It was cold and raining so I went over to his car and asked him what he wanted. Three heavily tattooed men stared back at me from the minivan. A woft of alcohol air immediately annoyed me. One of them was smoking a joint. Their car wouldn't start. I secretly thought to myself "You bums - get off my street. Get out of our community. You are what is wrong with my neighborhood. You are the problem. You are why kids can't walk down their own street and why old people have to buy bars for their windows." But I used my most manly deep voice and asked what was the problem.

They had run over a tree branch and the wires under their car had pulled apart. And there the car came to rest, in front of my house. Like a wounded skunk in our front yard - I didn't want them there and I didn't really want to deal with them. You just want it gone before something bad happens. And the three drunk thugs were enjoying their high directly in front of my house. Master grammarians, they were using the F word as a noun, verb, adjective and participle with vocal inflection in much the same way Papa Smurf might employ the word "smurf." If I called the cops, they would know it was me and I would get retribution. If I didn't call the cops, they might be out there all night. If I fixed their car, I would be helping them to drive drunk. My two next door neighbors were freaking out. "If you help them, they'll rob you. Don't help them." The worse part is that these dudes knew where I lived now. If I made the wrong move, they might break into my house, steal and vandalize it like some guys did to the house next door to mine. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I left. Sommer and I went and ran some erands and hoped they'd be gone when we came back. Like the levite in the story of the good samaritan, I pretended to be too busy to help. "I can't help you guys. I have to go."

When I returned an hour and a half later, they were still there. In fact, they had called some friends to help them. And profanity filled the air like fireflies on a hot July night. Finally, their friends pushed the van to the next block and they were gone. And I couldn't be happier. They were out of my neighborhood.

"Who was a neighbor to the man?" Jesus asked.

Community is difficult. We might get robbed and vandalized. We open ourselves to be victims. And it would be great it if weren't for the "wrong people" always getting in the way.