Disguised

Mother Teresa once said,” Whenever I meet someone in need, it’s really Jesus in his most distressing disguise.” I wish I could say that. It did happen once though.

 I was a temporary manager at the Potter’s House, our church’s coffeehouse and bookstore. A young man came through the door, smelly, drunk, filthy, muttering. This was not uncommon, but this time I saw Jesus. I took him to a quiet corner, ordered food, and talked with him. Despite his “distressing disguise,” I was able to stay close to him. My heart was bursting and breaking at the same time.

 After we went to Christ House for him to shower and get clean clothes, I returned to angry faces. The cooks knew him by another name and shared his story of bad choices. They were shocked and critical that I had let him in. We were running a restaurant after all, and I did it backwards. He should have gotten cleaned up first, then would be welcome. I knew that was our policy, but it had not entered my mind.

 I saw him many times over the next few years. He came to the Potter’s House in various conditions. He appeared in the front row of a nearby church when I was preaching, and I saw him moaning and sleeping in a heap in the back alley. Every time, I felt a bond of love that could not be explained or broken.

 In the gospel for today,* Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats, separating them by whether they did or did not care for the thirsty, hungry, naked, stranger, sick, or imprisoned. He said that whatever the sheep did or the goats did not do for the “least of these,” they did for him. The astonishing thing is that neither the sheep nor the goats had a clue about that: “When did we see you hungry?” they asked. “When did we see you sick?” Whether they were helpful or not to someone in need, none of them saw Jesus.

 What could our world be like if every distressing disguise opened our hearts to the eternal reality of love? To seeing Jesus’ actual presence in the least of these?