My friend Anne is a talented nurse.

She worked hard to earn her degrees, which she puts to regular use in her frenetic profession – where she cares for a wide variety of patients who have undergone increasingly complex procedures and require increasingly complex recuperative regimens. Anne can insert an IV, read an EKG, and interpret most every beep and bleep that comes from an array of constantly updated monitors that find their way into her rooms. Anne is a consummate professional, with years of experience. There are few things that surprise her anymore, and only one thing that gets under her skin.

Every once in a while, as Anne is making her rounds, she will come upon a patient whose large family is gathered nearby. After she performs her tasks, she will inquire about nutritional needs: ‘May I get you anything to eat or drink?’ she will ask her charge. This is when the patient turns to the assembled family and says, ‘Hey who wants something to eat or drink – Anne’s gonna get whatever you want!’

Anne is a nurse, not a waitress. Her professional degrees are in palliative care not bartending. Few things ruffle her feathers like being demoted to scullery maid.

Can we relate to this? Lawyers asked to make copies. Engineers asked to make coffee. The demeaning, the undignified, and the humiliating. What gets under our skin?

In Sunday’s Gospel Jesus knows, and tells us how to cope.

Faced with a band of sophomoric disciples, whose argument over who is God’s favorite was so grossly immature that even they wouldn’t fess up to participating, Jesus taught them a lesson. Taking a child, whose social status was less than a stray dog, he said, ‘Whoever welcomes this child welcomes me.’

This is the image my friend Anne carries in her mind as she delivers a ginger ale, diet coke, and coffee to those clueless patient families. She is not serving them, she is serving Jesus. Sure, she’s showing them hospitality, but she’s really welcoming Jesus.

When we are asked to do tasks that are "beneath" us, converse with people "below" us, aid the lowly among us – how can we see Jesus in this? Can we understand the duties that humble us not as demeaning and denigrating, but as opportunities to serve the One whom we long to serve?

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Reading

Theodore Rex – Edmund Mullins

How to Be a Blessed Church – N Graham Standish

Ashamed No More – TC Ryan