Angry, Drunken Jesus

As you can see from the previous posts, I'm back from a mission trip in Clewiston, Florida, located on the southwestern shore of Lake Okeechobee. It was quite a lesson in 'connexions', as it consisted of a group of men and women from Azalea Park UMC, who borrowed a van from nearby Trinity UMC and a trailer from Conway UMC, and drove down to and based out of FUMC of Clewiston. That's a textbook example of Methodist unity.

Anyway, we spent four days tarping torn-up roofs and clearing broken trees and debris. Many of the people who we helped were disabled, elderly, or otherwise unable to help themselves.

Most, however, were not. This rather rankled our collection of men. Other than the pastor and myself, all of them were self-made small businessmen in their 50s and 60s. One quality that such men find profoundly offensive is laziness. Another is wastefulness. Many of these broken mobile homes had luxurious interiors, equipped with expensive electronic toys and fabulous furniture, yet were roofed with the same makeshift coverings put on from the last hurricane, and never secured with a proper new roof. Healthy and young, well-bodied men living in them did not join us on the roof or help us clear out brush.

The two women who accompanied us, also in their 60s, had more experiences along these lines. They organized food and supply distribution at the local UMC church. Since Hurricane Wilma hit two weeks ago, the local church has been broken into numerous times. Looters boldly took whole cases of goods out of the building. Several pallets of drinking water sitting outside vanished overnight (and mysteriously appeared the next day at a nearby Pentecostal church).

We were all glad to help out these suffering people, even those who seemed less than grateful. One woman, gushing with delight at our assistance, filled her cooler with bottles Arizona green tea and gave it to us. One man loaned us his pickup truck once he saw that we making the home of his paralyzed neighbor livable again. A 90-year old man told us jokes, and informed us that the worst part of being his age was that he was "no longer able to give out a world-class fart". And it was a wonderful act of racial reconciliation that this van full of white men went out of their way to help poor black people. But for these men, who had been born poor and struggled to rise up, build businesses and better lives for their families, "Budweiser Man" was the most offensive. This gentleman tapped into the worst racial stereotypes that these older Southern white men had been raised with. He was young, strong, and completely unwilling to help clear and tarp over his own roof. While we were baking on his roof in the hot south Florida sun, he sat in a bar a block away and drank. We never saw him without a beer in his hand.

I didn't care that much. We were there to help people and this guy, whatever his faults were, needed some roof repair. But the others were especially aggravated by Budweiser Man.

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' "Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' Matthew 25:31-40

The difficulty is that when we meet the disguised Jesus, or the 'little ones' representing him, he might not always be a pleasant person. He might be lazy, irritable, angry, or roaring drunk. He might stink horribly, both physically and morally. It doesn't change anything. We are still to love our neighbor -- feeding him, clothing him, and visiting him. Or this case, tarping his roof.