The Fifth Station: The Fellowship of Suffering

"A great crowd of people followed him, including women who beat their breasts and lamented over him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, 'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, "Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts which never nursed!" Then they will begin to say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" For it they do these things when the wood is green, what will be done when it is dry?'"

A group of women lament as they see Jesus coming. Some are young, carrying their young children; some are old, leaning on each other for support. They have troubles of their own. But they weep for Jesus. There is always trouble in the world - plenty to weep for. There is plenty to worry about. But he has also promised that our weeping will end, and turn into joy.

As I was walked our neighborhood one day, I came upon a woman who, standing in her door, surrounded by five children and a house in great need of repair, reminded me of these women. She is a black woman – a single mom with a large burden – a woman who had little time for people who mean well. She asked me, “Do you really think we’d be welcome in your church?”

I wondered what church would welcome a single black woman with a load of misbehaving kids. That’s a lot to ask of a church. A lot of folks would say things about her – things that might drive her away. They might say, with her limited resources, she shouldn’t be having kids. “Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” The streets are full of women like her. People who have made bad decisions, people who got left behind in the dust of someone else’s choices, people who never quite made it. It’s the underbelly of the American Dream.

I wonder how accepting we would be? I wonder how long it would take before someone would say, “She doesn’t belong here.”

I wonder about a lot of folks whom people think should never have been born. People whom we think we could do without. Those whom we would consider it to be a blessing not to have to deal with. Not only the poor, but the retarded, the crippled – and maybe a few neighbors. There must be some reason for them to be here. Some reason God has placed them in our care. Jesus spent three years surrounded by folks like that – not the pretty, the well-to-do, the successful – but people no one else wanted or cared about.

I remember a man who stopped in at my first parish, in Baltimore. We got a lot of guys like him – before we got politically correct, we called them, “bums.” Now we call them indigent. That doesn’t sound as bad. He smelled to high heavens. He wanted some money, he said, for food. I noticed he had holes in his shoes, and had no socks. I asked him if he could use some shoes and socks, and he really brightened up. We got in the car and rode to K-Mart and got him some, and I set to taking off his shoes, because he couldn’t seem to get them untied by himself. I had to peel them off. After we got socks and shoes on him, and some food in his belly, he left, contented. I had to leave the windows of the car open for a week to air out the smell he left behind. It was a good exercise for me. Every once in a while, the good Lord reminds me of the need for humility, and tends to do that in a very “hands-on” kind of way. I kept telling myself, ”What you have done to the least of these, you have done to me.” I know I used Jesus’ name a few times in the effort – I hope it wasn’t in vain. But I was glad to see the man go.

Once, when I was talking to a lady who ran a place in Pittsburgh called the “Rainbow Kitchen,” similar to our Religious Community Services, she looked around at all the people waiting to see her – all needing something from her – she sighed and said, “I’ve got so much to love!” Then she giggled. “Guess the Lord loves folks like these, she said – or he wouldn’t have made so many of them!”

As Jesus walked the road to Calvary, with the cross on his shoulder, he saw folks who had their own burdens, who wept – because they knew what it was to carry a heavy burden – a burden that is more than a person can bear alone. Jesus looked on them with compassion, because he understood. He knew what it meant to bear an unbearable burden. He knew what it meant to be without comfort. He had become one of them. Do we take into our hearts those whom no one else wants? Those of whom others say, “It would be better if they hadn’t been born?” Can we welcome them into our family as well, and call them our brothers and sisters?

Easier said than done. But do it we must, if we are to walk with Jesus.

We take our stand with Jesus. We want to walk with him, walk all the way - all the way to Calvary.