A humbling experience

This evening I was on my way home from Winston-Salem and stopped at a busy intersection. To my left was a concrete traffic island. While waiting for the traffic light to turn, I was fumbling with my cell phone trying to pull up my favorite classical music station on my streaming app. I noticed a shadow to my left, but paid no attention to it, my mind fixated on listening to some good music on the way home. 

Glancing up from my phone somewhat later, I looked in my side-view mirror to see the back of a homeless woman walking away from my car, now several cars away, hoping to get some financial help to get her through a cold January night. Moments before she had been standing by my car hoping I would acknowledge her, power down the window, offer a kind word, and give her a little help. I had been oblivious to her existence and her need. 

On my way home, I couldn’t enjoy the music I had so carefully selected. I was thinking of that woman, the cold night that lay ahead of her and my failure to help. I was reminded of the allegory of the Rich Man and Lazarus from Luke 16: 19-31. The rich man’s sin was not that he was rich. It was that he didn’t recognize the existence and the need of the poor man at his gate. 

I failed my homeless sister, and I failed God. Of course, I believe that I am immersed always in the Grace of God and that forgiveness abounds. Still, I believe I was given a wakeup call. Jesus calls us to be alert, to pay attention, to have our lamp wicks trimmed, and be ready to serve God and God’s people. How many opportunities to share God’s Good News do we miss because we are focused on trivial things?

Epiphany calls us to see God revealed in Christ. It also calls us to see Christ revealed in our neighbor — our neighbor in need, our neighbor who’s struggling, our neighbor who puts on a brave face at worship while suffering inside, as well as our neighbor who’s rejoicing. It calls us to notice neighbors who don’t look, worship, speak, vote, or pray as we do. It calls us to recognize them, too, as God’s children.

May God give us eyes to see and ears to hear,
Deacon Vern