Spare me a smile?

Within a few weeks of having started a new job in downtown Portland I had learned, while walking around the downtown area, to avoid making eye contact with all the people asking for spare change.

One morning, as I crossed a street, I could see a young man sitting on a store window ledge at the other end of the block I was approaching, ratty backpack & duffle bag beside him on the sidewalk, palm held out to the crowds of stone-faced business people on their way to work. As I got closer I could hear him saying over and over, “Spare some change for some food?”

As he repeated his request I could see the tension on his face and hear the rising exasperation in his voice as more and more people ignored him and walked on by. I was just walking past him when he stood and shouted “Somebody spare me a smile so I can feel human? S***!” He snatched his bags off the sidewalk and stalked angrily away.

I wish I could say that I stopped, talked, helped, made a difference… The fact is that I was stunned by the truth I had just heard, and kept on walking. His words haunted me; by ignoring the homeless, the transients, the mentally handicapped, the down-and-outers, was I denying them their true value as people created in God’s image? Was I truly guilty of treating “the least of these” with such disdain and arrogance?

That was 10 years ago. I’ve thought about that young man so many times, and I’ve tried to change the way I treat those who – especially in the downtown business core with its sidewalks full of busy and important professionals – are on the outside of “respectable” society.

I’ve also thought a lot about what a smile can convey – Acceptance, worth, inclusiveness, belonging – and realized that this is what God has done for me, for all of us. While I was a down-and-outer, God smiled at me, and gave me a sense of value and worth, belonging and acceptance (Rom. 5:8). Jesus, in the incarnation, is God’s smile that restores our humanity.

Happy Easter!

“The LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."
Numbers 6:25,26