Loving Judas

About ten years ago, when I first started working with the homeless at a Nashville ministry, I met Leroy—an affable, strapping man whose smile lit up a room. He had spent years in prison for a violent crime (I never found out exactly what he’d done, nor did I really want to know). The ministry leaders gave him a dry place to stay. They entrusted him with some responsibility and offered him friendship. I looked forward to seeing him on the days I volunteered and welcomed him into my home for several holidays.

Then, one day, Leroy took off without so much as a goodbye. One day he was thriving, and the next—well, rumor had it that he’d been spotted under the Jefferson Street bridge, but no one could find him.

My heart broke that day. I didn’t yet understand that a broken heart is not such a bad thing.

Investing yourself in the lives of the addicted, the mentally unstable, the transient, and the chronically homeless is risky. Loving them is even riskier. Granted, loving anyone at all is risky—that’s why some people close themselves off and simply won’t do it—but the odds of being hurt are somewhat greater when the friend in question is at war with him- or herself.

Three years ago, when Manna Café was brand new, Kenny befriended a homeless man named Charlie. Kenny encouraged Charlie to drop by anytime and hired him for odd jobs around the Manna House to instill a sense of purpose and pride. One day, Charlie stopped showing up. On the same day, we discovered that someone had crawled into the Manna House window and made off with a computer.

Then there was Danny, who was such a talker that he’d converse with a lamppost if there were no humans around to listen. He was funny and eager to get involved with whatever was going on. He was one of those guys who drives you nutty and crawls right into your heart at the same time. We loved him. And then one day he stole a couple hundred dollars and spent it on drugs.

Then there’s the old veteran who shows up at our doorstep every year or so and brings laughter and affection into our lives—and who, after a few months, inevitably goes on a week-long bender and hops a bus to Lord-knows-where.

Sometimes these “high-risk” people steal from you. Sometimes they plunge back into their addictions or slide back into mental illness because they refuse to take their meds. Sometimes they land themselves back in jail.

It never gets easier, and it always leaves you wondering, “How could they do this? I’d have given them the shirt right off my back, so why did they steal from me? What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t my friendship enough?”

We can’t understand why someone would act so foolishly when we love them so much.

It’s a valid point. After all, no one has ever loved like Jesus loves, and yet look at the way we act. He gives us everything, and then we hop the next bus. When He went to the cross, He knew that much of humanity would reject Him and that even those of us who do love Him would continue to mess things up again and again and again. But He did it anyway, because He loved.

And think about what happened just before Calvary. Jesus picked up a towel, knelt down, and washed His disciples’ feet. Judas was one of the those disciples. In other words, Jesus took Judas’s dusty feet into His hands and washed them just hours before Judas double-crossed Him. Jesus shared His life with Judas, traveled and ate and laughed with him, and brought him into the inner circle, yet this didn’t keep Judas on the straight and narrow. Loving Judas wasn’t just risky, it was a guaranteed fail. But Jesus loved him anyway.

I don’t pretend to understand love like that. But I’ve experienced it a million times, because I am Judas. A million times, in small ways and big ways, I have broken faith with the One who loves me most. And therefore, even though it hurts—a lot—when I offer my heart and it’s ravaged, I’ll do it again.

And again.

And again.