Thinking Anew: IN HER book Cry Pain, Cry Hope, the Rev Elizabeth O'Connor gives a disturbing account of her experience helping out in a Washington night shelter for street women. She describes the women as they arrive with little or no possessions, grateful to be made welcome and glad to get some food and somewhere to sleep safely for the night.
When morning came, however, their mood changed. “Distraught women – some of them old and sick – could not comprehend why they were once more being ‘pushed out’ into the streets. We, who had received them warmly the night before, were the very ones hurrying them along, benefactors so soon to become enemies.” She tells of one old woman who started to pray, only to be taunted by another woman: “God don’t hear your prayer.” The blunt comment made Ms O’Connor think: “Does God hear her prayer? Then I remembered God is in me and where I am God is. The real question was ‘Did I hear her prayer?’ What would it mean to hear her prayer?”
Every Sunday in our churches we pray for “the sick, the poor and those in trouble”, but Elizabeth O’Connor’s point is that when we ask God to listen and address those concerns his response will often come through the loving action and generosity of people – and not always overtly religious people.
She is saying how difficult that can be. The Letter of St James is very practical: “If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?” Of course, one way of dealing with such challenges is to pretend they don’t exist or don’t deserve our attention. In tomorrow’s Gospel reading we hear the story of a blind man called Bartimeus who, realising that Jesus is close by, called out for help. The people around Jesus told Bartimeus to be quiet, but when Jesus heard him he ordered that he be brought to him.
Jesus spoke to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” And we are told he received his sight.
Like the crowd following Jesus that day, it is tempting to keep at a distance those who are likely to upset things or make demands that we are unwilling or unable to meet. Often they are kept at bay because their presence is seen as a threat to our financial or social interests. There are others like the gay community whose lifestyles challenge us and are marginalised and even vilified because we just do not want to know. It is unthinkable that Jesus would ever have excluded people the way we do. Indeed the only ones excluded from his presence were those who excluded themselves because they hated his openness to everyone who came his way.
Bishop Willie Walsh tells the story of a couple he ministered to who were not formally married but lived together. The woman was a churchgoer but because of her circumstances was not allowed by her church to receive Holy Communion. They discussed various options but the problem remained and the bishop found himself in some difficulty. "Did I become the outsider who tells them not to worry about the church's law and simply to trust that God's love and care for them is greater than any church law? And did I become a further outsider by praying with them and asking God to bless and enrich their love and their union – a union that will always leave them outsiders?" And then he adds: "But then Jesus always seemed to have a special care for outsiders – the lepers, the woman accused of committing adultery, Mary of Magdala, the tax collectors and sinners. Indeed by his very association with outsiders Jesus became an outsider himself." As Joseph Hertz said: "Man is never nearer the Divine than in his compassionate moments." – GL