"When bad timing is transformed." Matthew 25:31-46

For several weeks, people from the smaller of the two churches I was serving told me that I should go and visit Mildred. She had been ill and they thought that she was going to get bad news very soon. So, I went to the hospital to visit her. It was the first time that we had met, and the awkwardness of that first encounter was multiplied by what was said and done in my first few moments there. When I introduced myself, Mildred told me that the doctor had been in less than an hour ago and had told her that she had six months to live, because nothing more could be done for her. As I stood by her bedside she became suddenly nauseated (hopefully, not because of me!)and began to throw up. I reached for the little tray that rested on her bedside table and held it in front of her to keep what was coming up from soiling her and her bed. Then I walked into the bathroom and washed out the tray, returned it to the table and continued to talk with her, and concluded with a prayer.
I visited Mildred on a weekly basis from that time until her death five months later. We talked about many things, including the wisdom of alternative therapies, her chances at entering heaven and the years she spent running a personal care home. It was months after that first visit that she confided to me that she was embarrassed when she got sick during our first meeting. She said that she could not believe that I was so calm in the midst of that messy time, and that I rinsed out the tray and acted as if nothing had happened. It meant the world to her. I reflected on that event and realized that I reacted in just the way that my mother reacted when I was sick. She took care of whatever needed taking care of and moved on. I was never made to feel shamed that I had gotten sick, or that, at fourteen years of age, I needed to be given a sponge bath by her after I had an appendectomy.It seemed like common sense to me. Perhaps Mildred was sensitive to the issue because she had cared for so many people over the years.
The Sunday of Christ the King features a reading by Matthew that speaks of the true meaning of kingship, and it is not what is commonly thought of when thinking about royalty. Those who care for God's people in the simplest ways will find the kingdom: visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding hungry folks and helping those who need clothing. I did all of those things in that little parish, just as countless pastors and parishioners do the same day after day. I would not have given such a simple act a second thought, had Mildred not called attention to my cleaning up in the hospital room. In these days of mega-churches and TV preachers, struggling little country churches and over-worked pastors, it is good to be reminded of the simple steps to the kingdom. I had no idea that doing the decent thing in the hospital room that day so long ago could have been a sacramental moment for one looking for some reason to hope and cling to faith. And such simple acts have never lost their mystery and majesty for me.