The Least Of These

The Least of These

“Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And 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

The AIDS researcher had been working on treatments for HIV for years, yet he realized he’d never seen the human side of the disease. Wanting to help in a more personal way, Richard joined a care team to help local people with AIDS who’d been shunned by their families. Destitute and dying, they were desperate for help.

John, Richard’s first care partner, was depressed and belligerent, but Richard had learned not to look for rewards for himself. His effort was all about helping John—visiting him in the hospital, delivering meals, taking him to doctor appointments. When John was about to be evicted, the team offered to help him pack his apartment and move to a friend’s place. John didn’t have the strength to walk to the car, so they created a makeshift gurney out of blankets for John and headed for the car. As they carried him down the steps to the icy parking lot, each person held up a corner. Richard was concentrating hard to not slip on the ice and drop John. Suddenly, as he looked down at the man they were carrying, something incredible happened. Both of John’s bony arms flailed out of the blanket, but his legs were bound together like on a crucifix. John looked up at his helpers with an expression that forever was imbedded in Richard’s memory: not a look of fear or pain but of total peace and love. Suddenly this wasn’t the face of an AIDS patient but of another man.

When they laid John down in the new apartment across town, Richard noticed a framed picture of Christ over the bed, and that’s when it hit him. Surely I must be imagining things, he thought. But when he told his minister, who’d also helped carry John, the minister said, “I know what you mean, Richard. I saw it too. The face of Christ.”

Though Richard is a scientist and a skeptic who has been put off by church quarrels and power struggles, what he saw on that winter day grounds him, draws him back to God, and continues to renew his faith, even many years later.

—CHERI

Lord Jesus Christ, may I be a servant who feeds the hungry, shows hospitality to strangers, visits those who are sick and in prison, and so encounters you as I am a vessel of your love to them.

Jesus is who we serve in the poor, so as we get closer to them, we get closer to Christ.

—MOTHER TERESA (1910–1997), FOUNDER OF MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY IN CALCUTTA, INDIA