It was a typical day for me. The main phone line to the church was broken. The Internet connection was down. I had a class to teach at Bacone at noon and just enough time to get to the hospital to see someone who was really concerned about her state of health. My cell phone was ringing and the telephone repair person showed up. He needed to have several doors unlocked and the upstairs attic stairs rolled out for him. After getting the repair guy set up, I locked the office door and started to walk to my car. A homeless man stopped me needing money to wash his clothes. I had only a single dollar bill in my pocket to give him, and I did not have enough time to go inside to check my office drawer for any cash. I spoke with the man for a couple of minutes, all the while distracted by the fact that I needed to be at the hospital. It was a terrible feeling of being rushed and not really being present for the person who was in immediate need. In retrospect, I thought of today’s gospel and how it is with the poor. When the person in need is standing right in front of you, it can change your plans and your priorities.

It is common to turn on the news today and hear all kinds of talk, one way or the other, about government programs for the poor. We hear name calling and language we would not apply to anyone in person, all used in reference to the poor. They are out there somewhere, not really human, just nameless faces who put a burden on taxpayers. Yes, some of us as physicians, judges, lawyers, and clergy work professionally with the poor. But how often do we actually stop our busy schedule and change our plans because of the needs of a poor person?

But that is exactly what happened to Jesus. “After sternly warning the leper he healed, Jesus sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘Say nothing to anyone. Take the offering for cleansing that Moses prescribed and present yourself to the priest. This will validate your healing to the people.’ But as soon as the man was out of earshot, he told everyone he met what had happened, spreading the news all over town. So Jesus kept to out-of-the-way places, no longer able to move freely in and out of the city. But people found him, and came from all over.”

Who can blame the poor leper? He must have been blown away by his healing. Yet the leper, who had formerly been forced to hide from society, is now freely able to interact in society. Meanwhile, Jesus is forced to withdraw from society. Some translations say that he kept to “desolate places.” Jesus and the leper trade places in terms of where they live and how they can interact with society. How many of us in helping the poor have been forced to change zip codes?

The very real, tangible aspect of God incarnate in Jesus is that God experiences human suffering the same as any of us. Without hesitating, Jesus heals this leper. The consequence is that Jesus is effectively banished from society. It is all well and good to talk about Jesus being fully human and fully divine. But when Mary proclaims that God has lifted up the lowly; God has lifted up the poor; God has set the prisoners free; this lofty ideal demands energy and commitment. It changes the plans Jesus made, and he suffers as a result.

We do not need to enter the politically charged fracas about “concern for the poor” or “safety nets.” We need to come to grips with the very simple, very direct demand that when a poor person or family is standing in front of you, it can change your plans for the day and it can change your life. This work is inconvenient. It is messy. We sometimes get scammed. But we must do it risking the scam, risking the inconvenience, and risking the possibility that we might be changed.

Following a set of rules is easy. You either follow them or you don’t. But we all know that real people seldom fit into easy categories. Following Jesus is not easy. It is messy. It is uncertain. Things don’t always work out the way we expect them. We will likely find surprises along the way both pleasant and unpleasant.

Last week I was invited to teach a class on ethics at Bacone College. Towards the end I gave a quick test about career priorities. There were six items on the list: Money, Advancement, Authority, Fame, Knowledge, and Integrity. I asked them to rank the top three items in priority order. Of course, integrity should be first on any list because without it nothing else matters. Of the college students, only one out of eleven ranked integrity in their top three.

There is an institutional equivalent to this test. We can be like some church bodies and hide behind a bunch of rules. We can proclaim that these are the Bible-based rules for you to get into heaven. Just follow these rules and you will be saved. You should know that we do not do this at Grace. At the other extreme though, do we get too wrapped up in tradition and doing things decently that we miss the poor people right in front of us?

I wonder if a church with integrity would really try to follow Jesus in everything. Would we allow our carefully planned days to be disrupted by someone else’s problems or praise?

We are called to follow Jesus. We are called to baptize more people than we bury. And we are called to share the teachings of Jesus with others. I think we will grow as we do these things. I think we will have fun. I just hope that we don’t get so busy that we miss the poor people right in front of us.