Lawrence Johnson was a fixture in South Baltimore. He was one of the city’s many homeless – roaming the streets, sitting on a milk crate, sleeping in doorways and on heat grates. After about 25 years of such a life on the street, Mr. Johnson died. When he died, people who had come to know this unassuming man began to remember him.
One man remarked, “I think that by virtue of his undemanding presence, Lawrence sat in judgment of how we treated him; though I am sure that’s not how he saw himself. I think he was a silent witness to the Gospel – how we treated him reflected how we treated others.”
A woman who used to take sandwiches to the homeless noted, “I learned about my faith from Lawrence. I guess it’s just so much easier for me to see Christ in the poor. There’s no sham about them. They have nothing to impress you with. You just look into their eyes and see the pure person.”
Yet another woman remembered that, after giving him a sandwich, she asked if he needed anything – gloves, a blanket. He would simply say, “No. I have everything I need.” It made her look deeper – beyond the surface. “When you look them in the eye,” the woman said, “it forces you to see a human being.”
In our day of “reality television,” it helps us to get a good dose of real reality – the kind that Mr. Johnson provided by his life and his death. Reality is not a group of college kids living rent free in the middle of Seattle; reality is a husband and a wife who work to feed and clothe their family and send their kids to school. Reality is not a bunch of beautiful people “stranded” on an island, voting people off to win $1,000,000 or an engagement to a bachelorette; it is a quiet, perhaps humiliated man, begging for change on a street corner.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives His disciples a glimpse of reality – what awaits Him in Jerusalem: the Cross. However, the disciples can’t handle that reality, so they focus on another – one of their own making: who will be the greatest.
How often do we do the same? Life is hard; reality is hard. So, we turn to the artificial reality of Facebook or Instagram to see the “reality” that other people present to us. As a result, we end up even more depressed and lost because we cannot measure up to these unrealistic, posed images.
But Jesus has His ways to cut right through such illusions. He takes a child and stands him among them. Then, embracing him, He reminds us that in order to be great, we much welcome all such as this little one. All who are poor and weak – the “littlest” of our society. Why does Jesus pick a child? Because with children there is no pretense. What is important to them is whether or not it’s sunny today so the can play outside; or whether or not the blue crayon is sharp so that they can color the sky and the ocean; whether or not someone is there to hug them when they hurt and tuck them in when they go to bed.
With a child – as with Lawrence Johnson – you get reality.
Today, our reality brings us here, into contact with Jesus in the Eucharist. May we learn from Him – as well as the children and people like Mr. Johnson – to be humble, unassuming, without pretense – and to welcome the littlest of our society as Jesus does. Then, we will be truly great in the reign of God.
And that’s really everything that we need.
* This homily was inspired by an article from The Baltimore Sun by Dan Rodricks, Sept. 7, 2003.
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