I bet many of us have had this experience. We come to a stoplight, often near an expressway exit, and there, looking directly at us is a disheveled individual, usually male, holding up a sign that says, “Hungry! Anything will help.”
My first reaction is to look at the stoplight and urge it to turn green so I don’t have to see this man anymore. Then I try to look away, fidget with something on the dashboard, try to ignore the person. Occasionally, if I have them in the car, I give the man a package of breakfast bars, or suggest that he go to the House of Mercy. The light turns green and I drive away, feeling sad, guilty, helpless.
How can I do anything in the face of this real life situation?
Then we hear today’s Gospel and I feel even more guilty. Jesus saw the crowd: poor people, homeless people, sick people, people without hope. The Scripture says, “Jesus’ heart was moved with pity.” Even though Jesus was still sorrowing over the beheading of John the Baptist, Jesus was very much present to the moment. He was a compassionate person. Compassion means “to suffer with.” Jesus was compassionate to the core of his being.
How do we imitate the compassion that Jesus shows in today’s Gospel? How do we do that in today’s society? I can see and fully understand why any of us might be reluctant to deal with that person at the stoplight or the one who stops us on the street and asks for money. We don’t feel safe. We are uncomfortable facing what may be potential danger.
So how do we, in this time and place, imitate the compassion of Jesus?
One of the leaders of the church in the 4th century, St. Basil, wrote, “The bread that you don’t eat is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the naked. The shoes you do not wear are the shoes of one who is barefoot. The money you keep locked up is the money of the poor.”
Once in a while I watch an episode of a home improvement show just to see what I would do as a home designer. More often than not, closets are overfull with racks of clothes and boxes of shoes, storage areas are full of bins of “stuff,” rooms are full of children’s toys that the youngsters have outgrown and the garage and kitchen are full of generations of tools.
For us today, to act with the compassion of Jesus, perhaps we could take St. Basil seriously.
What, in the last two years, have you and your household not worn or used? What have the children outgrown in toys? All of these might go elsewhere, to be better appreciated and put to use. Package them carefully and discard what is clearly beyond anyone’s use. Make this a family effort. You and unnamed others will both benefit. This is not to make space so you can buy more. It is not the same as helping the man at the streetlight. His may well be a problem of mental or psychological distress. Thank God we have volunteer groups in Rochester who help gather the distressed and get them to safety.
May compassion of Jesus take root in us, and the ideas of St. Basil move us to divest for the sake of the lives of others.
~Sister Joan Sobala
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