Yesterday, my mother went for a free hair treatment she'd received because she'd watched a play earlier in the year. At the end of the treatment, the saleswoman (predictably) tried to sell her a package deal to become a member and receive ten hair treatments for $2000. My mother refused, and the price went down to $1000. Still beyond my mother's budget, the saleswoman tried offering her various permutations of packages and costs, but thankfully my mother (remembering what had happened the last time she had fallen for the guile of salespeople and bought a very expensive vacuum cleaner) walked out of the shop unfettered with any sort of attachment to that place.
At night, I curled up next to her as she read to me from a book about Mother Theresa. The part she read to me can be summed up in this line 'The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved-- they are Jesus in disguise.' My Mum looked up, aghast, and said:
'You know Miriam, I've been thinking about that hair treatment.'
I (afraid she was going to cave and buy it), said, 'It was horrifically expensive.'
Mum, 'Yes, who can afford to spend $2000 dollars on ten sessions of hair treatment?!'
I murmured my support, still not quite sure why we had taken this sudden departure from Mother Theresa.
Mum continued, 'I was thinking about how long $2000 could sponsor a child. I pay about $45 to sponsor a child for a month. $2000 could sponsor a child for... oh my goodness, 4 years!'
Then we talked about how sometimes we feel that our church, while great in preaching and focusing on evangelism, sometimes fails to see the very physical needs of so many people everywhere. Some people in our church are wonderful - Uncle William Lenn and Auntie Yahwu are using all their savings to set up a girls' home in Chiang Mai so that the girls from Kathy's Home in Pua, when they go to the big city for University and lose the protective and nurturing environment of Kathy's Home, will still have a community together.
But unlike Uncle William and Auntie Yahwu, we often forget that Jesus asked us to love one another, and not just pray for one another. We so often focus on saving souls that we forget that God gave humans bodies too, many of which are suffering from malnutrition, sickness and fatigue. Mother Theresa said, 'When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.' I think there needs to be an awakening - an opening of eyes to the fact that as a Christian, when God asks us to love our neighbour, he means for us to think of our neighbour and notice what our neighbour needs, and give it. We must not just think of our neighbour, and feel pious for our consideration. We must not just pray for our neighbour, and slide all responsibility for his provision onto God, and refuse to let God work through us, and mold our generosity and humility to serve our fellow people.
'Make us worthy, Lord, to serve those people throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands, this day, their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give them peace and joy.' -Mother Theresa
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Perhaps the first step towards this is understanding that in our economy, each person is linked in a intricate and complicated supply and demand web to many many others. The things we buy are made by someone, shipped by someone, priced by someone, sold by someone, and when we discard them, they are collected by someone, processed by someone, thrown somewhere by someone, and may very well form someone else's back yard view. Ask questions: Who made this? Under what conditions? Who priced this and how can it be priced in this way? Who will this affect? And under and over and through all of it as, 'When I buy this, or when I do this, is Jesus the center? Would this be something that Jesus would be happy for me to have and does buying it show love to other people?' (Sorry Miriam, I do NOT think Jesus is the center of that Stone Cold Fox x Beach Riot swimsuit)
It can get pretty mind boggling. It can make going into places like PRIMARK and Forever21 miserable. But slowly (or even quickly!) it will become natural, it will feel natural to care for others in the things we do and buy. It will become natural to restrain from consuming and consuming to satisfy a need, and it will become natural to rely on Jesus Christ to fulfil that need, and strengthen us from temptation and give us joy in loving others.
'I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” ' -Mother Theresa
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After the first step, which is really nothing more than becoming passive in the economy of extracting pleasure from other people's pain, the next step is an active one. An active will to reach out and love. We can start one person at a time. I know I need to take it slow and ease into it, because I often approach things with the 'charge headlong into it' attitude which lost the Jacobites the War on Culloden Moor. I suppose it can start from not losing our tempers at younger brothers, at helping our mothers when they are in cleaning frenzies and it is so much easier to just go out of the house, to meet up with people who you haven't seen for months, and listen to them, and love them.
But it's important also not to stop there. When I was younger, at every Chinese New year my parents would divide my Chinese New Year money into parts - one to spend however I liked, one to save in my bank account, one to donate to (usually) Worldvision. And I never felt that it was any sort of injustice that 'my money' was being given away. Because I knew it wasn't my money. I knew that I was lucky to be part of a culture that inexplicably gives children money every January or February. And I knew that somewhere in another country, they don't have Chinese New Year and children never get handed money in little red packets. I hope that that childish logic will continue to prompt me to give what I have, especially now that I am earning, and even in college when I receive a monthly allowance from my scholarship board. There are people out there working as hard as I am, if not harder, and being as clever as I am, if not cleverer, without having the ability to advance that I do, and that injustice is greater than any petty injustice that I give money that I 'earn' (by doing next to nothing) to others.
Donating often seems a very passive thing to do - but I think it is certainly a start. It is part of a process that demands us to sacrifice for someone else and 'a sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves' -Mother Theresa. If something costs us nothing, takes nothing away from us, it means we can certainly give more. And giving cultivates an attitude of generosity and love and service. And every little act of service that we give out of our heart, is a gift to God.
Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me.
Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little child, you receive me. -Mother Theresa
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This post was titled 'Would you like to see Jesus?' because so many people do want to. It is hard to love and serve someone we don't see, and sometimes that makes being a Christian hard. But what my Mum read -'The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved-- they are Jesus in disguise.' is so true. The thing is, Jesus is in all these people of need around me but because, to save myself trouble and sacrifice, I avert my face, I don;t see them and I don't see him. But if I would look into the face of someone in great need, even if I only saw that face through a computer screen donation campaign, I think I would be looking at Jesus. Jesus asks for us to love Him, to serve Him, to make much of Him and make ourselves nothing more than a tiny whisper in the background. And that is what that person in need requires too.
'Would you like to see Jesus?
[Mother Teresa takes Bishop Curlin around a few walls to a man lying on a black leather pallet who has clearly visible things crawling on his body. As the bishop stands there in shock, Mother Teresa kneels down and wraps her arms around him, holding him like a baby in one's arms.]
Here he is.
[The bishop asks "Who?"]
Jesus. Didn't he say you'd 'find me in the least person on earth?' Isn't this Jesus challenging us to reach out and love?'
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