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Service Devotion
Mother Teresa of Calcutta once summarized the Gospels in five words while counting the fingers of one hand and saying, "You-did-it-unto-me." Thank you, Mother Teresa, for cutting to the chase. The Good News is indeed about our relationships, as Jesus insists, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it unto me." This “what” has been called the marrow of the Gospel.
John the Baptist was already urging his disciples to serve those in need when Jesus first met him. "Share your coat with the naked, your bread with the hungry, and don't abuse your authority over others," John told those who came to hear him beside the River Jordan. And although he and Jesus both emphasized serving others, one of the greatest differences between these cousins has to do with how they described this spiritual devotion of service to their disciples. While the service of John redresses the Justice of the Reign of God, the service of Jesus is an encounter with the Son of Man, the Human Child, Beloved of the Father.
John urges us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and not lord it over the oppressed because this actualizes the restoration of the Reign of God on earth as it is in heaven. He challenges us to reform the indifference that has hindered us from connecting with others, to repent of the materialism that has captured our attention, and plundered the world to fill our closets and pantries.
"John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins," St. Luke says, "telling those who had two cloaks to share with the naked, and those with two loaves to share with the hungry." I actually saw a modern day example of John's basic insight one night at a Franciscan Retreat House just outside Guatemala City where our American pilgrimage group was spending the night.
This was our first evening in Central America so everyone was tired, hungry and a bit strung out after an overnight red-eye plane-trip, a full day of new sights, sounds and gas fumes and a breathtakingly dangerous bus ride out of town across the winding road that skirting the sheer cliffs of a former volcano. For dinner we were served steaming rice, black beans, fried bananas, jerk chicken and warm French rolls, all of which disappeared rather rapidly. Dessert was a plate of large oranges, although not exactly enough for everyone. You could feel the hesitation creeping into the room as folks counted the oranges and themselves.
The big guy, a married deacon from Tucson, didn't miss a beat however. Grabbing an orange without looking at anyone else, he put it in his pocket, mumbled something to his wife and went outside for a smoke. Just as he was leaving, one of the Guatemalan friars came into the room, sat down at the empty place at the table. Taking one of the oranges, he split it and offered half to the big guy's wife saying, "Would you like some dessert?" Bingo. Everybody got it, and when the big guy got back, there was plenty of orange going around and everybody was looking at each other again.
Jesus raised the bar considerably on the subject of serving others and sharing with those in need when he affirmed that whatever we do unto others we do unto him. We might say that while John was addressing sharing the oranges, Jesus went on to emphasize the eye contact that results as the oranges are being shared. This is the human connection that Mother Teresa also understood so well, the difference between Justice and Charity.
So what, you may ask, do oranges and eye contact have to do with the homeless panhandlers we pass every morning on our way to work? Well, perhaps not a lot. But on the other hand, if it is their poverty itself that is frightening us, or it is the scent of unwashed body odor that is upsetting us, or having to look at the open sores on their faces that is nauseating us, or seeing the many, obvious signs of their addictions is turning us cold, it might indeed be because we have not yet managed to look deeply into the eyes of the bleeding, abandoned, and criminal Jesus.
For even as looking into someone's eyes can lead us to understand their souls, so too for a Catholic, looking into the eyes of the crucified can lead to an understanding of the crucified soul within every Child of Mankind. This includes those Jesus specified, who are among the least, the homeless panhandlers, you and me.
Once we have met in faith the Child of Mankind within one stranger, we know better what to look for with the next stranger; we know to search for a simple basic human connection capable of transforming our feelings of suspicion and fear into feelings of concern and care for one another. Meeting Jesus in a stranger does not mean meeting the Child of Mankind instead of meeting that actual person before us, but rather it means acknowledging the vital signs of a Child of Mankind in any human trait located beneath the obvious economic, cultural and other differences that distinguish us.
This human connection can be as simple as a good punch line, a sincere, off-guard smile, or just a timely shrug in common at the insanity of it all upon all. But it is a spark that lights up the darkness surrounding a stranger to reveal another human being, our brother, our sister. We can generally tell when this kinship feeling occurs because it is most often followed by an overdue exhale.
I recently complete many years of service at St. Anthony Foundation, a large inner city homeless dining room and social services center in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. It was named St. Anthony's Dining Room over fifty years ago by its founder Franciscan Father Alfred Boedekker who wanted to transform an existing parish "soup kitchen and sandwich line" into a dining room where persons could sit down and share a hot meal together as well as some conversation and the warmth of human connection within a safe and warm environment. Fr. Alfred certainly understood what Jesus meant about "doing it unto me," about contacting the Child of Mankind whenever we manage to connect with each other.
During my decade at San Antoine's I kept this reminder with me in plain sight from my desk, taken from the anonymous internet wisdom tradition. I think it is a good summary of the service of devotion.
People will forget
most of what you said to them.
People will forget
much of what you did for them.
What people will not forget
is how you made them feel.
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