Her name was Margarita, and she was undocumented here in America. She had come with her parents from Guatemala. I never knew the particulars of what happened, but her father was killed by a gang in Miami, and her mother left her out of fear. She was sixteen. And she had heard that there was a thriving Guatemalan community in Chattanooga based around the chicken plant.
So, she sold what she had – and she sold herself – in order to get there. But things didn't work out like she had hoped, and she found out that she couldn't get any of the papers needed to work and the only way she'd stayed alive was prostitution. And that's what she'd been doing for a couple of years when her pimp beat her, robbed her, and left her for dead.
She recovered from her physical wounds, but nothing could help the spiritual ones, and that's how she came to the women who run St. Catherine's shelter at St. Paul's Episcopal Church before I started seminary
His name was Jason. He was a monthly attendee at the St. James Wednesday suppers and communion service in Knoxville. Jason was infected by HIV, and he lived in a small east of the city. And once a month he would make the long journey over two lane roads to come to the Knox County Health Department.
The reason wasn't because that particular health department was any better. No, the reason was that everyone knew each other's business where he was from, and people would talk. There was no amount of HIPAA assurances that would keep him safe.
So he had to drive once a month. And when he did, he would stop in at St. James for dinner. It took the folks there a few months to find out that he would sleep in his car in the parking lot before driving back, even in the bitter cold of the winter.
I never found out another man's name. But I encountered him in Johnson City in Northeast Tennessee as I was leaving VA hospital after a visit. This place is a huge, sprawling campus. And all over it, in the parking lots, sit lots of folks, mainly scraggly dudes that had been in military service. So many of them messed up in so many ways.
One guy was sitting out by my car, smoking like a chimney. He looked rough and he was muttering to himself. He saw me and he saw my priest collar, and I could tell he was going to want to talk.. I kept thinking, “Don't catch his eye, don't catch his eye. Just look away, get in your car and get out of there.”
After all I had another stop to make before I got back to Kingsport, and I was going to be running late. So, I pulled out my phone and acted like I was checking it as I got in the car and drove off.
I left him standing there. Now that I think back on that, I can't help wondering, in Jeremiah's words, “What wrong did I find in him, that I went far from him?” And I can't help fearing that, in the words of the writer to the Hebrews, he might have been an angel.
This country is proving to the world that it's hard to welcome strangers, angels or not. Especially if those strangers are strange somehow, not like us.
It's easy to say that we are like any other species and we generally migrate to those who attract us to them. But, that's just not so. We have brains, and we have the word of God both telling us that it's not so. So we fall back on excuses of time and priority.
We are in a hurry in this life. We have chores, lists, obligations, commitments. We have to be where we have to be when we have to be there. People depend on us. That makes us important, to be depended on. We can't break into that routine.
So sometimes we...you know, let's be honest here: I, not we – I. Sometimes I keep my head down, I keep walking like I have a purpose, I pick up the pace, just so I can get past those uncomfortable situations as quickly as possible.
And sometimes, when I stop to think about it, I imagine I walk right past God, without even looking, leaving God standing there, sad and bemused, wondering, “What wrong did you find in me that you went so far from me?”
We have so much going wrong in our nation today. And because of that we have so much opportunity to read and hear the word of God and realize that it is NOT some quaint old document that warms our hearts one hour a week.
Y'all...IT IS RELEVANT. It is relevant to exactly those things going on all around us. Hebrews speaks to what is happening today: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.” Y'all...come on.
We are ruled by people who demand all the places of honor...at our expense. We are controlled by leaders who demand loyalty to themselves...and not the gospel. Because if their loyalty was placed where ours should be placed they would be bringing the poor and oppressed in and raising them up, not rounding them up. They would be helping the crippled and the lame...not tossing them into the dark. They would be seeing the faces of those living in fear of their unwarranted actions...but instead they are blind.
Jesus' words today should leave us all hanging our heads in shame, knowing that we, too, so often scramble for the expensive seats and leave others to sleep in the dumpster. Well, like I said earlier, I can't speak for anyone else here. But when I hear Jesus speak to me, I hear my heart cry, “What wrong did you find in me that you went so far away from me?”
It took some doing, but the ladies of St. Catherine's made a lot of contacts. They were able to work with lawyers to get Margarita what is called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status by proving abuse and abandonment. She was able to get a green card and stay and get a job. Because these women saw and angel and not a prostitute.
It took some organizing, but when the folks of St. James found out about Jason's issue, they decided then and there, that Jason wouldn't sleep in his car. So, every time he showed up, they would put him up at the Motel 6, so he could have just a little bit of dignity. Because these folks saw an angel and not a disease.
They invited these people...these human beings...these angels to the banquet of their hearts. And y'all, who we hold in our heart is who we love. And in loving those in our hearts we honor God, the true guest of our life's banquet. By loving those uncomfortable ones that cross our paths, we put God front and center, not off to the side wondering “What wrong did you find in me that you went far from me?”
By loving them, we love God. We love God.
So who out there will you let into your heart? Invite them. Invite them in.
As I drove back to Kingsport, I thought about that guy in the parking lot. What if I had offered him a seat of honor in my heart? What might have happened to him...and to me?
Would he have seen an angel in me? Would I have seen an angel in him?
And then I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and wondered just why I didn't stop to at least acknowledge him, acknowledge his humanity. And I sped up a little. I didn't like what I saw looking back.
Maybe, please God, maybe next time I will.
Amen.