It all began on a bitterly cold day in Louisville with the wind chill taking the temperatures well below freezing. My wife, year old son and I had just moved into the two-bedroom third floor apartment on top of the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel in the inner city. I was a full time seminary student and I’d just become the person in charge of the rag-tag congregation of five little old ladies and a bunch of prisoners caravanned to Sunday morning service by a sheriff carrying a rifle. The apartment came with the job and it was free.
The salary was mostly what was collected on Sunday mornings. Jeff Street survived because in those days Baptist still cared for the poor. So the folks at Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta paid the bills as part of their home missions. I remember my entire compensation that first year was $3,100.
I think that they believed that anybody poor certainly didn’t have Jesus in their life and was going straight to hell hence investments in buildings like Jeff Street.
Baptist Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta somehow had convinced themselves that I would be able to rectify this and help poor people get saved. Perhaps the only thing that I ever really accomplished there was saving poor people from Baptist Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta!
We had a Christmas tree that year. A few blocks from the apartment was an outdoor market that sold them. I was sent to get one and we had so little money that I tried to barter with the guy selling them.
“Sure,” he said full of Christmas spirit, “come back on December 26.”
So I spent more than I’d been instructed to spend and drug the tree across concrete blocks and then up three flights of stairs. It was a “Charlie Brown” tree for sure after that but Janice has this great ability to make things look good and by the time she’d finished yelling at me and working her magic it looked pretty good shining down on Louisville’s largest housing project.
The following Sunday morning I crawled out of bed and dressed for Sunday service. Blue jeans, brown hiking boots, a white shirt and a blue sock tie. I called it the “Kroger-look” because I looked like one of the bag boys at the grocery store.
Then I’d walk down the stairs, flip on lights, adjust the thermostat, crank up the van, fix coffee while it warmed up, then climb in and go try to round up a congregation. Quite honestly there was little reason to attend Jeff Street then. The five little old ladies all fell asleep as soon as the service started and the prisoners were all contemplating a plan to jump the sheriff with the gun.
The biggest attraction was Janice’s terrific ability to hit bad notes rather than right notes on hymns. And of course Jeremy was always finding his way to the Baptismal pool leaving clothes lying in the hallway.
On this particular morning though, I walked downstairs, flipped on the lights, adjusted the thermostat, fired the coffee pot … and saw them.
Five men huddled together in the doorway of the Church, trying to get out of the cursed wind, jumping up and down and smoking and cussing. Jeff Street had glass doors and glass walls at the entrance so I stood there looking at them and they stood there looking at me. I remember that I had keys in my hand.
And a thought struck me. Here at I am, 23 years of age in charge of a building called a sanctuary with locked doors and bars on the windows while outside stood five men desperately in need of a sanctuary.
There was this pregnant moment when ten eyes looked at me and two eyes stared at ten. With no thought I unlocked the church and told them to come inside. There were steps to climb when you entered and they all sat down on them patting themselves and willing warmth.
I poured them cups of hot coffee and started another pot. Then I sat with them on the steps. Their names were Chester, Bruce, R.C., Poochie and Mr. Edwards; three white, two black. All freezing!
They all thanked me over and over for letting them inside. I think that I remember Janice brought Jeremy down at one point to see what was taking me so long and there I sat with five homeless men drinking coffee. Introductions were made though that part is foggy to me.
Then we all became the dearest of friends. Some moved into Jeff Street with us because there were all of these Sunday School rooms that nobody ever used. Chester became the babysitter after Kristen was born. Poochie was our protector. They were forever getting me out of bad situations on the streets of Louisville and I was forever saving them from themselves.
It was the holiest of times.
Today I sit and stare at Goddess asleep on the beloved back deck in 23 degree weather. The wind is whipping. I have layers on and it is cold inside of this beach house. But it takes me back to where it all began for me.
The outside looking in and the inside looking out, a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, Baptists who love buildings more than people … and me discovering that I was an Innkeeper and there were these people with nowhere to go. So like the Innkeeper in the story who found room for Joseph, Mary and a soon-to-be arriving Savior to the world, I invited them in.
And all of these years later there is something very Christmas about that morning.
More Christmas than I’ve ever felt before.
Or since.
