Two Types of Beggars

I was in New York City a few weeks ago, and I noticed something about the homeless beggars there.  Essentially, there are two types of beggars: those who try to earn their keep, and those that put themselves at the mercy of those that walk past them.

If you've been to a big city, you know what I'm talking about.

This realization hit me when I was waiting inside a store, looking out the window towards the street.  After a few minutes, I saw a homeless man who held the door open for each person walking into and out of the store, looking at each beneficiary of his help for any sort of financial reciprocation.  He found no takers, and decided to move on.

I contrasted this man to a woman I walked past earlier.  She was sitting on the sidewalk, her back resting upon a building's marble wall, eyes closed, face downcast, with a thin blanket across her lap and a lone cup sitting in front of her.  Her request was clear.

The man and the woman were both looking for the same thing, but took vastly different approaches to garnering it.

By opening the door for people, the man was hoping to put them in debt to his kindness, thereby hoping to compel them to repay him with some change.

By being still and placing a cup before her (and everyone walking past her), the woman was placing herself fully at the unwarranted mercy and kindness that might spring forth from a stranger's hand.

He was trying to earn his help; she was waiting for grace.

(I am fully aware that I am reading into these peoples' motives, and might be incorrect.  For instance, the woman might not have had such innocent motives: she may have been playing the guilt card, which would just be a different form of the "earning" attitude that the man was exhibiting.)

I can't help but to see two different approaches to Christianity.  Some of us are more like the man, in that we "do good" and "obey" to put God in our debt so that he must answer our prayers, bless us, and save us.  Others of us are more like the woman, simply sitting quietly before him, placing ourselves fully at his mercy and confessing (without words, even) that we are in a wretched state, that his uncalled-for kindness is the only thing we wait for and need.

This division is not even just between people; it lies within individuals, it lies within me.

I know that I am nowhere near the first to convey this notion, but it becomes startlingly clearer to me as each day passes that it's this division in me, and not necessarily the shifting line between "old" and "new," that is my daily struggle, my main offense, the source of so much misery, because it speaks so honestly about what I really think of Jesus Christ and what was finished on Calvary.