By Rev. Bill Crews
It was winter in New York and bitterly cold. It was early morning and so even colder than usual. I was all rugged up and rushing to get to church on time.
“Have you got a spare dollar?”
I looked impatiently around and noticed a pencil-thin, raggedy young man struggling to hold a thin yellow blanket close to his body. What I particularly noticed was his unkempt, blonde, straggly hair.
“No.” I said impatiently. “I don’t have any money with me.” That was true. I didn’t. As I hurried on, I heard the young man behind me asking person after person,
“Have you got a spare dollar?”
“Have you got a spare dollar?”
At first, I thought he was following me, but what he was doing was going from hurrying person to hurrying person, struggling on in the cold miserably behind me.
“Have you got a spare dollar?”
“Have you got a spare dollar?”
Over and over again, I heard him. It felt like the words were arising from the very footpath itself.
By now, a dim, uneasy feeling was beginning to take hold of me, and I shook it off as I turned the corner to walk up to the church, relieved to find I was still on time. The church steps handrail was so cold it almost stuck to my hands, and I was pleased to walk into the warmth of the building.
Then it hit me: Jesus told a story about a beaten man lying in the gutter in a pool of blood. Two religious people walked by and wouldn’t go near him because they were on their way to church, and blood would make them spiritually unclean. They left him there to bleed. It took a reviled outsider (today probably a refugee) to stop, bind his wounds, and give him money to rest up.
Hearing that story, I would pour scorn on the religious people who walked by, scurrying on to get to church. And yet here I was doing exactly the same thing. It was more important to do the religious act than actually do the really religious act, which is to honour my brother in need.
I could’ve stopped, looked him in the eyes, and treated him with respect. But I didn’t. I hurried on to share with a group of people who wouldn’t have known or cared if I hadn’t turned up anyway. I know I’ll never see that young man again, so I can’t even begin to right the wrong.
So please, when you read this, don’t say to me, “Bill, we all do that.” Because that’s the moral of the story. We all can believe we are better than the other person, but the truth is we aren’t. We’re all stuck in this crazy life together, and we need one another’s help to get through it.
“Have you got a spare dollar?”
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