“Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’”
Matthew 25:44-45
After he finished peeing in the bushes right in front of us, Alejandro stumbled over and plopped down next to me on the bench. Urine covered the front of his pants, the remnants of vomit had dried into his beard, and he hiccuped and slurred through every word. As he sat all too close and mumbled pick-up lines in Spanish I couldn’t help but think, “Lord, please don’t let this man throw up on me.”
Between his severely intoxicated Spanish and my unceasingly inadequate Spanish, our conversation could only carry so far. His few moments of lucidity showed a man that was desperate, lonely, and in pain. When I asked about his family, he firmly replied that he had none. He was alone and had been for 13 years.
As I sat and listened to Alejandro ramble on about things I didn’t understand or make comments about me that I would rather not understand, my heart broke. Here we sat, around 2 in the afternoon in a public park, and he was more drunk than I had ever seen anyone and clearly had been for quite some time.
How did he get here? What in his life was so insufferable that it was better to be completely hammered and make a fool of yourself in public that have to live in that reality?
And how many times a day is he met with a judgmental gaze? Or people shifting uncomfortably and just not looking at him to avoid any interaction? Or even being outright ignored?
With every rejection he is told: You are beyond help. You aren’t worth my time. You digust me. You are less than other people. Your pain makes me so uncomfortable that I can’t even look at you.
It is so easy to judge pain we don’t feel.
We say things like it’s their own fault, they need to help themselves, and they don’t want to get better but it isn’t that simple. I looked into the eyes of a man desperately searching for something to cling to. Eyes that brimmed with tears as I prayed for a new family for him and told him that God wanted all of him, the good and the bad.
We need to step up for our brothers and sisters in the streets and stop treating poverty like a communicable disease. We deny them the one thing they need more than anything else: love. I hate how cheesy the use of that word has become, but that is the key to any sort of hope for something better. I’m not talking about the “love” you find in Hallmark cards that says what you want to hear and pacifies you until the next holiday. I’m talking about the kind of love that listens to understand instead fix or respond. I’m talking about the kind of love that cries and hurts together. I’m talking about the kind of love that dies on a Cross.
I met Jesus yesterday. He smelled like piss and booze. He made crass comments and leaned in too close. He stumbled when He walked and slurred when He talked. His clothes were dirty and smelly. He didn’t make any great professions or changes in our time together. He stumbled off to another girl to make pass and ask for money. I met Jesus the yesterday, and it was an honor to know Him.
