This is the sort of reaction which often greets a volunteer returned from an extended period helping in the developing world – or a church worker after years serving deprived people living on-the-margins.
"…Laid-back, no way stuffy…A very normal gu
y who knows the score. With him, you can say what's on your mind".
To stay with church personnel : this very same reaction is evoked by meeting, for instance, a Religious Sister who had long exposure to work with very poor people, especially the sick.
"…A deep-down human character…She's had her outlook broadened by the people she worked with…Low-key, but clued-in…Her I can relate to".
Not out-of-touch
Or it may be a priest, sister or brother who has long been active with young people, especially troubled ones – he or she is experienced as totally approachable. "…A real breath of fresh air. Switched-on…You can see that he knows how to hang with all types – a bit mad, even…Around him, you don't have to be watching what you're saying".
There is a deep humanity about all those who have dedicated their best years to working for groupings who are in any way under-privileged.
This humanity impresses everybody who meets them – and it bears out the truth of the saying : "If you work for the poor, you receive from the poor every bit as much as you give".
But at a deeper level the example (or "witness") of these workers with the "marginalized" has another message for us all.
For, they are a living reminder that this same caring for the "outsiders" characterized the work of Jesus himself. Their presence to those in the deepest human need, is nothing less than a dramatic re-enactment, on the stage of modern life, of the original work of Jesus.
They are, so to speak, inviting Jesus to step out from the plaster-cast statue and the church stained-glass window – and to take his place again in the sort of real-life situations he once faced.
It has to be so – because Jesus was known far and wide as somebody who mixed with "low-lifes".
He was a friend of outsider types – like those who had a bad reputation; or those considered to be careless about religious custom; or even those believed to be fleecing their neighbours while collecting the taxes for the Roman forces of occupation..
He loved the company of the poor. He could be approached by the disease-ridden, by those shunned as a source of contagion. He privileged children. And he had women in his following in an age when no woman was deemed of sufficient account to be a witness in court.
A "non-threatening" God
This is the Jesus who is re-introduced to our modern scenario by those figures I mentioned earlier, those who today reach out to the under-privileged in his name. And perhaps the greatest service of all which they do us, is to help us transfer this "approachable" image of Jesus into our own image of God. Because, without the help of a "non-threatening" image, it can be very difficult to relate to God – to 'pray'.
Granted, 'fear' – when we understand it as a sense of proper reverence, and as an appreciation of all that we owe to God – can be one component of genuine religion. But many people have grown up with such a threatening idea of God, that fear predominates – and has banished every other reaction.
These people – and all of us so affected to some degree – need instead to turn our gaze to the image (for instance) of the patient and understanding Jesus demonstrating tolerance towards the failings of his first followers. These 'apostles' were reckless or cowards by turn – they made every mistake in the book; and yet Jesus never gave up on them. Or we need to recall more often the attitude of Jesus to the woman caught sinning : he rescued her from her accusers, and (without giving ground on principle) sent her on her way to begin a new life.
When some complain that they are not able to pray, they often mean that they do not know a God that they can be at ease with, or relax with. They are too afraid even to begin speaking to God in their own words.
And they feel that to give expression to any frustration with God's handling of their lives – even temporarily – would be 'over-familiar'…
But they might experience some relief of stress, if once they knew that 'praying' has been defined by one expert (Saint Teresa of Avila, no less) as : "a conversation with someone by whom one knows that one is loved".
