I've told y'all about Little Jimmy before. He was the homeless addict that would hang out at St. James, Knoxville. Conversations with him were difficult at times because he sort of took his on logic-path when he was talking. And I had trouble catching up when he's take a sharp turn in the story. But occasionally he would make pretty good sense, and learning about his life stories was actually a privilege.
One night, headed home, I stopped at the Fellini Kroger to pick up a deli pizza, and there was Jimmy, leaning in to a car in the parking lot, talking to a guy. I knew what was going on. Jimmy was trying to turn a trick for some cash to get something to make his pain go away. Apparently they came to a suitable arrangement since Jimmy got in the car and they drove off to a secluded part behind the Kroger.
You see, Little Jimmy had become a prostitute once he was homeless. It wasn't like he took this on as a career path. This was pure survival for him. He wasn't ever sober enough to hold down any kind of work, so this was his last resort that didn't involve hurting someone else. Even in his state when I met him, Jimmy couldn't bring himself to hurt someone.
On Wednesday night, at church, Jimmy showed up for our supper. I went over and sat with him and told him I saw him at the Fellini Kroger and saw what he was doing. He got that look that people get when they are caught, and you can tell they are trying to think of a way to talk themselves out of trouble. But Jimmy wasn't always that good at thinking and gave up. He just said, “I'm sorry. I'll go.”
He got up to leave, and I got up to stop him leaving. I just said, “No worries, dude.” And I went and got us some more bread. A lot more. He was hungry. As he was wolfing it down, he said, “I hate doing that. But it takes the pain away.”
Little Jimmy didn't always have such rotten luck. He came from a fairly typical suburban family in the South. Working parents, a brother and a sister. He played baseball and the guitar. And during high school he hung out with the bad boys and began taking drugs and drinking. One thing led to another, and his life and mine intersected at a church that fed all comers. His dad had tried to beat the hell out of Jimmy. I mean that literally. He tried to beat Hell out of Jimmy because his pentecostal church taught that was how you turned people back to Jesus.
Jimmy didn't cotton to that and ran away from home. As far as I know, he never went back. But that night Little Jimmy shared something with me. He reached in his wallet and showed me a picture of his mom holding a baby. That was Jimmy. He had the whole world in front of him. And that Jimmy in the picture had no inkling that the Jimmy sitting next to me would turn to prostitution to survive. And the Jimmy sitting next to me had such a broken heart because he had let that young baby down.
Jesus, today, tells us a story of two sons. Probably both loved by the father. And the father asks them to help him out in the field. The first one says he won't do it, but eventually does. And the second son says he'll help out, but he doesn't. And Jesus makes it clear that the first son, the disappointment, is more in the right.
We don't know anything about these sons. We don't know what paths their lives took up to this point of the story. And we don't know why one refused to help, and the other didn't show up. And we aren't supposed to know, I suppose. What Jesus is telling us is not a parable about keeping a deal. He's telling us a parable about what is hidden in the heart.
If it were all about right and wrong, about keeping your word, we wouldn't even need the parable getting under our skin. No, this is about something bigger. This is a parable about every time we make sweeping generalizations about people and use those generalizations to render judgement, or worse yet, render pain. This is about remembering that God love us all, period. And it's about how God holds fast with the deepest love to those who suffer the most pain at the hands of others...and at the hands of themselves. This is about second chances, and third chances, and fourth. This is about forgiveness, and selflessness, and soulfulness. It is a parable as to how to approach others as individuals to be loved and not as objects to be judged. As Paul says in Philippians, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”
I wish I would stop forgetting these things, but I forget them all the time. Just last week, I was up at the Hannaford in Clinton, just doing a little shopping. This other guy, kinda rough looking, was there, also shopping. And he didn't have on a mask. And when I walked by, I muttered under my breath, “I guess rules don't apply to some people.” I felt really good about myself, because I said it low enough to maybe just be talking to myself, but loud enough that I know he heard me.
But then I heard him gasp and say, “Oh, no, I forgot my mask!” And he left his stuff and ran out to the car to get it. Then he came back and picked up where he left off.
Which was the better man? I know for sure it wasn't me.
There is no telling what was on his mind when he came into the store that had him distracted enough to forget his mask. There's no telling what burdens he's carrying, what pain he's hiding. What paths he's taken in his life. All I know is that I judged him. And I judged him unfairly. But even so, I know that God loves him...and thank God for that. Because if I were in charge...heaven help us all.
After Little Jimmy had left that night, people were closing up the kitchen, and I was sitting with the rector, John Mark, telling him about seeing little Jimmy at the Fellini Kroger and how he still carried a picture of his mom and himself from so long ago. I think I might have even said something trite like, “Well, you can't judge a book by its cover.” And John Mark pulled up Spotify on his laptop and played a Christine Lavin song, and I can still hear the words:
He once was somebody's baby.
Someone bounced him on her knee.
Do you think she has any idea
What her little boy's grown up to be?
Amen.