“Come you who are blessed by my Father…
For I was hungry and you gave me food…”
--Matthew 25:31-46
“I was hungry…” This reading from Matthew has always spoken
to me –as (I am certain) it does to so many.
It leaves me pondering the many times I have met and turned away from
Christ. He was standing right before me
and I turned away or I drove right past him standing at a corner or I rolled up
my window as he approached to ask for change.
How often have I turned from Christ and hardly given it a
thought?
When we look at that man standing on the corner holding his
sign or holding out his hand many times we don’t see Christ; we see a wreck of
a person or we see a possible threat, or we see someone we suspect is trying to
take advantage of us (a scam?), but rarely –I imagine-- do any of us look at
that person and immediately see Jesus.
And yet, that seems to be what He is saying here. Jesus doesn’t say to us: When you do this, it’s like you were doing it for Me. Consider
it a form of spiritual simile, if you will. The poor are symbolically my
presence and therefore if you do something for them, then metaphorically you
are doing something for Me –at least on a spiritual plain. Jesus seems to be saying that when we care for
the poor, the hungry, the prisoner, the sick, the stranger we are in fact
caring for, visiting, feeding, helping him.
It seems to me, that He is being pretty clear about this. That when we
care for those in need, we are caring for Jesus. And yet, knowing that –in my
heart of hearts—how many times has God come to me, literally walked up to my
car window and presented Himself to me, prepared to touch my life with His
presence –His grace—and I turned away because I was too busy or too scared. Because
he looked too grimy or too tattered or too smelly or too desperate. And, of course, there were times when I
thought the guy standing there with his hand out wasn’t tattered looking enough;
he was probably just some guy pretending to be poor. Some cheat who will just take my money and
waste it on beer or drugs!
But, what if I rethought that; what if I just retyped
it: what if I simply changed “he” to
“He?” Would that capital H make any
difference in how I treated him/Him: the poor woman or man, the sick, the
half-naked hungry stranger? I think it
would. If I started looking at that destitute
person at the stoplight not as some “thing” to be avoided, but as “someone” to
be welcomed (a King, perhaps), I think it would make all the difference in the
world.
What if I really heard these words and believed them? What if –instead of letting this oh so
familiar reading wash over me and fill me with a sentimental feeling, what if
really listened and let it change my life. Hearing these words, really hearing them, what
if I went forth filled with a desire and a commitment to meet Christ in the
poor and the sick and the prisoners?
What if I went out filled with a desire to reflect God’s generosity back
to Him by giving freely to the poor, the sick, the naked, the stranger. What if
I opened my heart to the blessing of God’s special presence in His poor? What
if every time I went out, I was prepared to meet Him face to face in His people?
Instead, too often, on hearing it I am momentarily filled
with a sentimental love of the poor that fades almost as I get up from the pew (or
close my Bible), and dissipates too quickly into worries about myself, my family
and my “poverty.” And then, instead of looking
for Christ, I avert my eyes, roll up my windows and keep my wallet safely in my
pocket when He approaches. Too often, instead
of looking for God in the poor and the hungry, I find I am looking only at myself,
and seeing there (in my reflection) my real god.
All of this reminds me of Dostoevsky’s Fr. Zosima (from The
Brothers Karamazov). Zosima is an elder in a monastery who presents
Dostoevsky’s simple and faith-filled response to Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor allegory. In a relatively early scene in the novel a “woman of little faith” comes before
Zosima asking for help. She claims she just wants to know for certain that
there is a God, and that the soul is immortal.
Zosima tells her that there is no proof for the existence of God, but
one can be “…convinced of it… by the experience of active love. Strive [he says] to love your neighbor
actively and indefatigably. Insofar as you advance in love you will grow surer
of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness
in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt. This has been tried. This is certain.”
That doubtless certainty is perhaps what Christ means when He calls speaks of those "blessed by My Father..." They are blessed with a faith that sees Jesus in the poor and doesn't look away.
If I want to know for certain that God exists, if I want to
know without doubt, if I want that blessing, then I must love my neighbor (and that includes my wife and
kids and mother-in-law) actively and indefatigably. I must treat them,the
hungry, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner (and the mother-in-law) with love and
compassion. Then, and only then, I will know without doubt that there is a God.
Because then (and there) I will meet Him face to face.
“When did we see you
hungry or a stranger or sick and feed
you or welcome you or visit and care for you?”
This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King. How is it we recognize a king? Most of the
time, we recognize a king by his crown.
Ask yourself, where do you find your king? Where do you see His crown?
