Supplying Pods

In my community we hear very little in the media about the homeless situation until winter approaches and then people and organizations scramble to keep transients from freezing — tents, sleeping bags, blankets and food. I don’t want to downplay the efforts of people helping those in need; however, at some point the homeless, like the Prodigal Son, have a responsibility to make different lifestyle choices. Reading the parable, I suspect that if the owner of the pigs had given the prodigal some of the pig’s food to eat this lost son might not have returned home to his father. In my mind the items collected for the homeless may be no better than the pods used to feed pigs.  “So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death” (Luke 15:15-17 NIV)!