The Underpass
Luke 18:13 “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’”
It was a normal, blue sky sunny day walking on the sidewalk next to a busy road with an interstate coming up overhead. I walked next to what appeared to be a homeless man going the same direction as me with a large gauze covering his eye as he pushed his trolley down the sidewalk. I struck up a conversation with him as we walked. I asked him what happened with his eye and then he described to me how he was suffering from squamous cell carcinoma that would eventually take his life. He removed the gauze and I saw the horror of the aggressive cancer taking over the side of his face and entirely covering his eye in physical blindness.
I asked why he had not gotten it treated and he began to describe how the doctors would not treat him because he didn’t have money. I countered that an emergency room visit would require treatment. However, emergency room visits ended up in referrals without treatment for him and those referrals resulted in dead ends because he had no healthcare insurance and no money to pay for services. So he bided his time.
The described lust for money over the care of a human life, even if he be a homeless transient man disturbed me and I told him so. He then began to describe to me how when someone sins, they miss the mark. As they continue to commit these sins, they increasingly miss the mark and stray further and further from what God intended thereby changing how they see the world. So that is how these people could treat him with such coldness.
He said this without malice, but in a peaceful understanding of how sin changes us. I stopped in my tracks to hear this man speak such wisdom as we approached an underpass with the interstate overhead. How did he understand that sin was missing the mark and with continued misses, the archer would get further and further away from the target God had intended for him?
In the dark shadow of the underpass and I asked him if I could pray for him to which he accepted. I was unsure of what I would pray about, but I opened my mouth and closed my eyes. As I addressed the Creator of heaven and earth and then mentioned this man, he interrupted and said,
“Don’t pray for my body. Pray for my soul.”
I hadn’t planned on praying for healing, but I did as he asked and prayed for his soul. I lifted up a simple plea for God’s forgiveness and mercy upon this man. For God’s remembrance of him in His eternal kingdom. While I lifted up words to my Lord and my God, this man chimed in and said,
“Now you are praying.”
I was so deeply moved by his surrender to death. He did not seek an extension on life. He did not seek a miracle, healing, or for better times. He sought God’s forgiveness and mercy on his soul so that he might live eternally in God’s presence. He was abandoned to life in the pursuit of Christ.
I marveled, took a moment to pause after the prayer, and the finally told him,
“You have an Orthodox Christian spirit about you.”
He smiled back at me and said,
“Yes, I do.”
How did this homeless man filled with squamous cell carcinoma, shunned from medical intervention, deprived of human kindness come to find a humble surrender to God’s will? Who taught him how sin takes us off course away from what God had intended? How did he come to treasure the mercy and forgiveness of God over the attachment to this life? Though I approached him that day thinking I could offer him some company and encouraging words, I ended up being the one who was humbled. I ended up being the one who was taught. I ended up being the one left in wonder of how God works in our lives.