In Distressing Disguise

In Distressing Disguise

Mother Teresa is said to have called the lepers and outcasts and dying ones that she and her order served “Jesus in distressing disguise.” The man whose body was covered in running sores and flies: Jesus in distressing disguise. The bloated child dying for want of simple nourishment: Jesus in distressing disguise. The infant left in a trash heap: Jesus in distressing disguise. Mother Teresa saw her job as simply loving each and every “Jesus in distressing disguise” that she met.

I’m no Sister of Charity. I don’t rescue men, women, and children from the ravages of disease or poverty. I live an ordinary life, but each day I encounter Jesus in distressing disguise. I can love him, or I can turn away.

There’s the high-handed, haughty colleague who disdains every opinion but her own: Do I love her as Jesus in distressing disguise, or do I silently judge and then dismiss her? What about the crude critic-in-chief who shames others into submission with his biting words? The self-proclaimed friend who deceives you then disappears like vapor when you need her most? The mean-spirited social critic who blisters openly and with malice those who dare to disagree with him? Jesus again in distressing disguise.

I’m not saying Mother Teresa had it easy loving strangers. I am saying that the most distressing Jesus-in-disguise challenges we face may not be strangers at all. They may be those nearest and dearest to us. (And we to them!) Regardless of the unseemly condition of the man, woman, or child before her, Mother Teresa saw the beauty of Jesus Christ . . . and an opportunity to love him through ministering to one of the least, the last, the lost, or the left behind. Today I’m asking God to help me do the same. My Jesus comes in distressing disguises of every sort, challenging me to love the unlovely or even the enemy in his name. And I want to. Because once upon a time, that’s just the way he loved me.

“Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink?” . . . The King will say, “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!”

Matthew 25:37, 40