Stray Dogs

Loving Jesus in everyone we meet

Matthew 9:34-38

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

            In the course of a day, you never know whom you might meet, and this is especially true if you’re a priest.  William Martin writes that being a pastor is like being a stray dog at a whistler’s convention!  Yesterday a parish family invited me for dinner.  I said I could only stop by for a few minutes because I was already on my way to dinner at another family’s home.  It’s so hard being a priest!  When I arrived, I expected a quick and polite visit, but I was greeted by Bishop John Brungardt of Dodge City, Kansas, a member of the Burton family.  They were about to begin Mass and I was enlisted as an altar server – I only messed up 3 times!  Bishop Brungardt was very kind and compassionate, I was sorry I couldn’t stay longer.  This stray dog heard the whistle blowing somewhere else!  But each person we meet – you might say each person who whistles at us – carries a small spark of God in them, which is really Jesus in them.  And when we see that spark and try to love that person, we also love Jesus who is in them.

            In the gospel today, Jesus is moved with great compassion for the crowds.  Why?  Matthew writes: “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”  But Jesus is no ordinary shepherd who guides his sheep standing nearby and protecting them from hungry wolves.  He does immensely more than that.  The Good Shepherd desires to be a Great Spark inside his sheep bestowing up on them a dignity and a destiny beyond the horizons of this world, and beyond the limits of their imagination.  You see, each person we meet carries a spark of God in them (that’s really Jesus), and when we love them, we also love Jesus who abides in them.  In other words, each one of us should feel like a stray dog at a whistler’s convention, trying to love everyone who whistles at us.

            Let me leave you with a poignant poem by Rev. Studdart-Kennedy describing how Jesus feels when we are indifferent toward him and ignore him:

When Jesus came to Golgotha,

they hanged him on a tree.

They drove great nails through hands and feet,

And made a Calvary.

They crowned him with a crown of thorns,

Red were his wounds and deep.

For those were crude and cruel days,

And human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Washington,

They simply passed him by,

They never hurt a hair of him,

They only let him die;

For men have grown more tender,

And they would not give him pain.

They only just passed down the street,

And left him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, “Father forgive them

For they know not what they do!”

And still it rained the winter rain

And drenched him through and through.

The crowds when home and left the streets,

Without a soul to see,

And Jesus crouched against a wall,

And cried for Calvary.

There were no stray dogs to listen to Jesus’ whistling.

Praised be Jesus Christ!