by Joseph Stoutzenberger
In the 1970s, I taught religion in a Catholic suburban high school. An older man, part of the janitorial staff, cleaned the bathrooms and emptied the overflowing trash cans in the cafeteria after lunch. Generally, he was one of those invisible people, like wallpaper or one of the fixtures he cleaned, that are simply taken for granted. I decided to speak with him one day. I discovered that he was an elder in his inner-city, all-black store-front church in Philadelphia. I asked him if he would come in and speak to my class one day. He said he would be glad to. On the appointed day, he arrived wearing a rumpled suit and carrying a well-worn bible. After I introduced him, he asked the students, “How many of you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?” No hands went up. He asked again, “Come on now. You go to a Christian school. How many of you accept Jesus in your heart?” One hand hesitantly went up. The speaker then went on to talk about how important Jesus was in his life, frequently opening his bible and reading a passage from it. He was mesmerizing and captivating. After class, he went to a locker room, changed into his janitorial clothes, and went about his business of sweeping floors and cleaning windows.
You can draw out any number of themes in that story. It seems to be an embodiment of racism and classism. Practically all the students were white; the old janitor was black. Most of the students lived in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, while the guest speaker commuted from a poor city neighborhood. It also serves as a reminder of our inter-connectedness. Trash cans do not empty themselves. Real people with real lives do that. It’s important to realize how systems operate. Cleaning bathrooms is as essential as overseeing the use of computers or grading papers. A school is a miniature neighborhood, and everyone there should be treated neighborly. The incident is also a reminder to look for signs of the holy in people and places often overlooked.
Gandhi spent a portion of his days spinning cloth. He never wanted to be too far removed from the simple labor that most Indians engaged in. He wanted all the people of India to do the same lest they lose touch with the reality of the simple life of most of the people in his country. Since 2012 the Catholic bishop of Yakima, Washington, has required his seminarians, men preparing for priesthood, to spend their summers working in the fields and orchards alongside migrant workers. He wants them to know firsthand how many of the people they will be called to serve live and work. Much like my speaker with my students, migrant farmhands can be overlooked but prove to have much to teach the seminarians. Privilege and clericalism dissolve when trying to learn the art of picking cherries at an acceptable pace from an experienced picker. Fresh fruit on the kitchen table doesn’t just appear there, and the bishop reminds his seminarians that the bread and wine they consecrate at Mass come from the hands of migrant workers.
A Sufi story tells of a renowned holy man invited to a banquet. He decides to arrive dressed as a poor beggar, and the host places him at the base of the table. The holy man returns in his fancy garb, and the host invites him to sit at the head of the table. The holy man strips off his clothes, places them on the chair, and says, “You obviously want to honor my clothes and not me, so I leave them here for you.” The host saw only appearances. Looking a little more closely would have revealed the true worth of the guest.
Jesus tells a similar story of a man hosting a banquet to which the well-to-do don’t show up, so the host beckons his servants to go to the streets and bring in those who are downtrodden to enjoy the feast. All through the gospels, Jesus sees beauty and worth in people others would rather dismiss—even dreaded lepers, despised tax collectors, and women plying their trade as prostitutes.
Yogi Berra famously said, “You can see a lot by just looking.” Perhaps the message of these stories is the importance of developing the art of seeing. Sometimes we look but don’t see. Seeing requires breaking through pre-conceived perceptions and being open to new viewpoints. Life is happening all around us, and it is always richer than we might expect. If we develop the art, we can see a lot by just looking.
Joseph Stoutzenberger 