WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

The Free Press ran a long series last weekend on the people of Corktown.  They focused on people who don’t just live there, but spend a great deal of time helping their neighbors.  They do everything from paying for food from their own pockets, sheltering the abused, and menaced, farming and sharing the produce, to taking in the homeless and providing meals. The whole area is awash with the homeless and the lost.  They are not popular and some people actually removed all the park benches so they would have nowhere to sleep. Then other people stepped in and replaced the benches and/or found shelter for them. These people have one major thing in common. They do not judge.  They help those in need over and over again and never expect anything in return. 

Their actions mirror those of Jesus.  Some of them are trying to do that; others have no idea that’s what they’re doing. They are just helping.  In his book, Who Is This Man?   John Ortberg describes both Jesus and these people of Corktown.  

“Jesus spent his life with the ordinary and the unimpressive. He would pay deep attention to lepers and cripples, to the blind and the beggar. The derelict, the broken person who has wasted their life away, the homeless, the poor, the diseased, the mentally ill, the exiles and refugees are viewed by many as burdens to be discarded, but Jesus saw them as bearers of divine glory who touch our conscience and still our selfishness.”

Jesus came in the world at a time when a child born with any defect was put on the trash heap to die. It was called Exposure and it was legal in Roman society.  Jesus called a child to him and told his disciples that unless you become like a child you have no place in heaven.  Thus began a radical change in society where the concept of the value of every human being was proclaimed.  We still fight against prejudice, intolerance and downright hatred, but the fact that we fight is proof that Jesus lives in us.

Christmas is a time for giving and the outpouring of generosity is huge, however, the people who are unwanted are always there.  Jesus said the poor wouldalways be there.  Most of us won’t or can’t go there and help but we can change our attitude.

We can stop judging them. We can stop thinking of them as derelicts and hopeless cases and remember that God came into the world, poor and in a filthy stable to be seen first by rag tag shepherds, people that other folk tried to avoid.  That was not an accident.  That’s what it’s all about. 

May the power of Christmas be with you always.

Carol Lemelin OPA