In the mid-60s, my parents packed up their small family and moved us to Hong Kong, where my Dad helped to start a missions hospital. Refugees had flooded into Hong Kong after the civil war in mainland China and the needs were great.
At five years old I knew little of refugees or hospitals. But I remember glimpsing alleys full of children, poor children wearing not much more than rags (if they wore anything at all). One day, we pulled into the line of cars waiting to board the Star Ferry to cross Victoria Harbour. People were everywhere, pushing and shoving, it seemed to me, a blur of angry motion on the docks. A man wailed something that I could not understand. Then he shoved his mangled hand against my window, stumps of fingers saying what his words could not.
Our car moved forward, and the man was gone. Half a century later, his hand — and all it represents, that overwhelming mass, that riot of need — still haunts me.
I am surrounded by needs today, even if they’re of a different kind. They push and shove, they tumble in a blur. Sometimes they shout and wail. But more often than not, I am sealed within the car of my own concerns, pushing towards my own safe destination. It takes a drastic need, something raw and aching shoved into my face, to call me to attention.
Lord, how did you you find the strength to touch the leper, to heal the hurts brought to your feet? In today’s gospel, we read in Luke 5: “great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirmities. But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed” (vss. 15-16).
Help me remember to withdraw and pray when I am overwhelmed with needs. Then fill me with your love, that I might open the door of my life and reach out to touch and heal.
* * *
Recently Pope Francis asked, “How many of us, myself included, have lost our bearings; we are no longer attentive to the world in which we live; we don’t care; we don’t protect what God created for everyone, and we end up unable even to care for one another!” (From his July 2013 homily at a mass for those who drowned off the coast of Italy.)
May each of us, in our small ways, be part of ending this “globalization of indifference.”
Follow
Great meditation and sorely needed to be heard and considered daily in our busy, self-concerned lives.
Sarah,
I am often overwhelmed with other people’s suffering. My conscience sometimes accusing, sometimes defending me.
This is a perplexing paradox. In 1st John chapter 3:16-24 I find a frank discussion of the myriad of emotions that washes over me when I see people suffer and in need. First there is the statement that if someone has need and I have the means to satisfy it, but have no pity, how can the love of God be in me?
What constitutes need? Is their suffering a just consequence? Am I enabling? Am I giving for pity what I ought to be saving for those I am responsible for?
Then I read a bit farther and am told how to put my heart at peace when it condemns me: Love with action and truth, not with words.
Paul said if we have food and clothing we are satisfied. Augustine states a thousand times in a thousand ways in “City of God” that the Lord is helping us over from our love of the things of this world to our Love of God and the things of His Spirit.
But if we are satisfied with food and clothing, what does that say about the “needs” we ought to be concerning ourselves with? Material needs? You just don’t see a whole lot of starvation and exposure in America, except natural disasters and the like. Then there is real and immediate need. And that is the need John refers to in this passage, because it is one that can be met by material possession.
There is real and immediate need in many countries besides ours – war, persecution, starvation, tyrants and despots, etc. This is the hardest for me, because it is not at my front door. Did God put me here or in South Sudan? Did God put me here so I am to be prepared to go to South Sudan, Turkey, or North Korea?
I am not certain of myself in these matters. But I know what I am doing about it. I am throwing myself heart, mind and soul into the scripture so I can learn to think like he thinks and pray accordingly. I am throwing myself into the moment that is present and satisfying the need that is in front of me. And I am throwing myself into prayer… even if I am so dull and listless I must get out my pen to make a coherent plea or request to God because my un-aided mind is too weak or unwilling.
This must be why Jesus went off to pray even when surrounded by need. His call was clear and his ministry of healing all who were sick and preaching the good news to the poor and the coming kingdom of heaven… it was all written down in prophecy before he came into the world. But he still said to his mother, “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.” He had a timing and a purpose, and for the years between age 12 and the wedding at Cana, God lived among the sick and dying but did not, presumably, heal anyone’s body. It was not his time. Do we have a time too?
Not that I do any of these things well or consistently. I can start naming on one hand people in my church who are loving others with a Christ-like love better than I. But then again…that is me concentrating on me. Such comparisons are death to any effort of unaffected love or shameless self sacrifice.
I know God’s most beautiful work is subtle, quiet, unannounced and often unnoticed…by the giver and receiver, with God who sees what is done in secret, what is prepared in tears and prayer beforehand… rewarding us by building up the New Creation in us often without our even knowing it so that our Father in Heaven is praised, and we do not grow fat over ourselves.
Need is not a simple matter unless it is extreme. When it is extreme, our heart lurches and adrenaline rushes and we can be propelled into action. But when it is less obvious… a rebellious or sullen teenager, drug addiction, a lonely spouse, being isolated in the middle of busy noise and blinking lights, losing a job, the fear of being useless, getting old, these are not always material needs. It was these kinds of needs that come from sin that Jesus addressed first when the paralytic was let down through the roof and He said, “Son, (Oh to hear him call me Son!) your sins are forgiven!”
Love your blog Sarah – I could not be more proud to be your brother!
Sam
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Thank you, Sam! I love this part of what you said: “I am not certain of myself in these matters. But I know what I am doing about it. I am throwing myself heart, mind and soul into the scripture so I can learn to think like he thinks and pray accordingly. I am throwing myself into the moment that is present and satisfying the need that is in front of me. And I am throwing myself into prayer… even if I am so dull and listless I must get out my pen to make a coherent plea or request to God because my un-aided mind is too weak or unwilling.”