Tonight as I walked home from the Liberty game, I wondered if perhaps the $8.00 sausage I'd bought might have been undercooked. I was proudly walking around with my Liberty jersey on, smiling to myself that I'd managed to score a personalized one (02, Perry) for only $35.00 instead of the normal $50.00. I saw my season ticket rep at the Garden and made plans to attend the seasonticketholder affair down at the water taxi site in mid-August.
And then I saw her. She was an older woman, probably in her 60s or 70s. She looked disheveled, perhaps a little dirty, but not filthy. She didn't appear to be out of her right mind; she appeared to be numb. Perhaps it was because she was sitting on the corner of 118th and Madison, with what appeared to be all her worldly belongings, in a shopping cart beside her.
I was touched with compasssion. I live alone, have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two flat panel TVs. I certainly have more than I need. Wouldn't it be the Christian thing to share? But sharing was not a possibility. I wasn't about to invite a homeless person into my house, not even to take a shower.
I wonder if this makes me a less devout Christian? I wonder where the responsibility to preserve one's own life and wellbeing ends and the responsibility to help one's neighbor begins? In theory, at least, they are one and the same -- as I lift up my neighbor, I also am lifted up. But in practice, it's not that way.
I don't know how to walk in the world as a Christian all the time. I generally stand on my convictions, but I believe Jesus calls us to something higher, and I feel like I failed at that today. I'm not so sure Jesus would have been happy about me taking in the homeless, but didn't he do the equivalent? Am I that far removed?
This isn't going at all the way I thought it would, so I'm going to end it here for now.
3 comments:
Cassandra, this is exactly what makes Christian life such a challenge. It's not a science to understand what we are called to do, and our wills are often weak even when we know what we are asked to do. I'm surely not going to preach to the minister, or attempt to answer the question explicitly posed here, but want to express thanks to you for having the humility to share this. When I have no idea how to pray, I say, "Jesus, son of God, my heavenly Father, have mercy on me, a sinner." We're taught that, "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." Above all else, though, is our own challenge to be humble enough to ask for absolution, which is such a precious gift.
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