After the wife parked the car, and while she cooled the engine down, I stepped out. We had travelled far and needed to go to a restroom, and such was the urgency that there was no time to waste. A teenager blocked my way, a peddler of wiping cloths which he cradled in his arms like a stack of documents. Since I did not intend to buy any of it, I brushed him aside. But he said, his voice weak and pleading, “I’ve had no breakfast.”
This time, I stopped and turned to him. I had had a good breakfast–nothing expensive, just brown rice, eggs and dried fish sauteed with tomatoes, and coffee, which, however, I would not exchange for any other fare, and the grace I said after that was sincere. Hence, I gave him an amount, just enough for a modest meal.
As I made my way to the restroom, I remembered what Jesus said, which John writes of in his Gospel–“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”
I understand that Jesus’ love, which we are to emulate, mirrors the love of the Father for him. By no means was the Father’s love of a dewy-eyed kind. Susan Hedahl said that “God’s love towards Jesus is demanding, full of presence and promise, rich in public displays of God’s power. It prunes, cleanses, molds, forms, challenges, and supports Jesus in his ministry. This is the love of Jesus Christ in which we are invited to abide.”
Giving that boy a paltry amount to cover the cost of a small hamburger did not demand much from me. I had no reason to congratulate myself for doing what I did. But I did feel light, a sort of joy, perhaps a taste of the joy which Jesus promises to give to those who keep his commandments.
Here are Jesus’ exact words:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
“This I command you: love one another.”
How easily I could fall short of the yardstick of Jesus’ love. I’d imagine that, if the boy, having had no nourishment at all the whole morning, collapsed and, mouth foaming, lay on the ground, not only would I be at a loss to help the youth, I would most likely fly from the scene like a criminal and just let others attend to him.
In fact, when I returned from the restroom, a girl, likewise a vendor of wiping cloths, who had seen me give money to her companion, came forward, likewise claiming to have had no breakfast. Judging from her appearance, she was probably telling the truth. But, having earlier helped someone in a similar situation, I felt justified, no matter how real and how great her need, to ignore her.
And then I felt my little joy dissipate. Jesus’ love does put us in a corner from which there is no escape.