Do you remember the first name of the waiter/waitress from your most recent trip dining out? Or the name of the custodian at work?
His name was Mr. Sommers. He was the maintenance man at the seminary high school. You’d see him in the gym and the hallways and corridors with his buckets and mops and rags. Polishing statues of the saints. Cleaning up the lunch that someone couldn’t keep down. Sweeping the bits of trash and paper and pen caps that were the legacy of the students at the high school. Always with a smile, and a kind word. Always with a story and a word of encouragement. And, after four years of high school, there were still a few classmates of mine who did not know his name, or if they knew his name, they knew very little else about him. I thought that not just a shame, but a tragedy.
First and foremost, Gerry Sommers was a good and holy man. And you can never know enough of those kind of people in your life. There is a simplicity to their lives and holiness that calls you to be a better human being and a better disciple.
But more so, it was a tragedy because it reveals a kind of flaw in your mindset as a disciple. If you never noticed the people who serve you, quietly behind the scenes, if you never were aware of the simple tasks that people do, whether because they were paid to do it or they chose to do it, doesn’t say something about who/what is important in your life? I remember thinking if I were the rector of the seminary, one of the last tests that I would give the prospective ordination class would be this. “Take out a sheet of paper and list the names of all of the secretaries, custodians and staff people who work at Kenrick-Glennon seminary.” And if you could not list more than three fourths of them, you would have to wait another year to be ordained.
In our day, as well as Jesus’ time, how we treat people with little social power says a great deal about what you understand discipleship is all about. And in the gospel today, for the second time, Jesus is trying to teach his followers the full measure of discipleship. The son of man must be handed over and killed and will rise on the third day. And they are having none of it. They resort to a stony silence, refusing to ask any questions, even though they know they need to. Even though the sense that if it is true for Jesus, it will be true for them.
And so Jesus does a little spiritual surgery on his disciples. And in a jarring kind of translation, we are told that “Jesus takes a child, embraces it and places it in their midst saying: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.” Interesting and telling, the use of the word “It” to describe a human being. There is a reason for this translation, and it is not about gender inclusivity. Rather, it is to counter the temptation in our culture to use children as metaphors, either for being childish – petty and immature, or for being childlike– filled with wonder and innocence. That is not Jesus’ focus. What he wants to do is help the disciples understand the second prediction of his passion.
In the cultural world of Jesus, children were ‘non-persons’ – ‘its’ – with no legal rights, no social status, no inherent dignity. (Even Thomas Aquinas put kids at the bottom of the pecking order of who you save from a burning building: Husband, then wife, then servants, then slaves, THEN kids.) To ‘receive a child with the dignity and value of the Lord himself’ is a profound, almost shocking demand by our savior. And putting that ‘it’ right in the middle of the disciples – crouching down to be on their level – would have been a brilliant way to teach the disciples precisely what His upcoming passion would mean – that EVERY person, EVERY child, EVERY human being on this planet has inestimable value, because our Lord gave his life for EACH one of them. And if our treatment of each person we meet, regardless of status or profession or social class, doesn’t mirror that truth, then we fail the discipleship test.
This week, take the Gerry Sommers test of discipleship. Observe yourself as you interact with the people in your world, especially those who do the less glamorous kind of tasks. Do your actions toward the person in the check-out lane of the store, the maintenance man at work, the clerk at the gas-mart show you to be a disciple after the heart of Jesus, or do they subtly indicate one who is still striving ‘become the greatest’. Even if you never give a dime to the people who stand with the signs at the exit ramp at 44 and Lindbergh, do you at least make eye contact with them, recognizing them as a fellow human person redeemed by God? Does my treatment of those who have little status mirror the truth that our Lord suffered his passion for them as well as for me? Or do I need to spend some more time asking for a grateful, humble heart to recognize the infinite value of each person?
What was the name of the waitress at that last restaurant?