On Christ and Cookies

Beams from the scorching Indian sun mercilessly sent familiar beads of sweat careening down my face. I again attempted to wipe the monsoon season humidity from my dirtied cheeks. My effort was futile. We inched further along one of the muddied side roads of Tangra, a slum in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India. This day the monsoon rains had brought the frequent flooding not uncommon at this time of year. What normally was a 10-minute walk now took a half hour, and my impatience mounted with the palpable heat.

I focused intently on my own feet. Avoiding the assortment of trash notoriously strewn about the streets. Avoiding the puddles of water that floated raw sewage in the aftermath of the afternoon showers. Avoiding the crowds gawking at my foreign features.

I was ungrateful. Exhausted from the heat. Annoyed that the hem of my pants was soaked. That mud and God knows what else had seeped into my shoes and made a home between my toes. That people didn’t point or laugh inconspicuously. That the smell of curry mixed with stench of street trash and holy cows made me nauseous.

Until I saw her. Rather, she saw me. A little girl no more than four or five. Stringy hair matted with dust. Distended belly displaying malnourishment. Simple shirt worn through with holes that barely covered the top of her thighs. Her circumstance was the picture of poverty, but her smile was the picture of joy. She was standing on the street, eating a tiny cookie, the crumbs of which freckled her pudgy cheeks. She stood frozen, peering at us through doleful brown eyes.

I half expected her to run back to the crowded room that was obviously home, crying from behind the knees of her mother. Instead she offered us her hand. It seemed casual, but our approach unveiled reality. This little girl was offering us her cookie.

Myriad thoughts flashed through my mind, first of disbelief, then through the flood of grace no monsoon could measure. My heart raced to the story in Luke of the widow’s offering:

“[Jesus] looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on." (Luke 21:1-4, NRSV)

This little girl was offering me, a stranger, all she had. As I shook my head, sure this was a mistake, the girl gestured again her pleasure in offering to us what may have easily been her daily bread.

Christ speaks of righteousness in terms of those who give to the least of these, “for I was hungry and you gave me food.” Suddenly in that moment I faced my own poverties, of compassion, justice, commitment, love, faith, and hope. But that little girl, with the physical offering of her tiny biscuit, spiritually invited me to the abundant banquet of Christ, to taste and see the Lord is good.

God is good. God is good here in Kolkata. In the midst of broken realities, from slums to sex trafficking, the love of Christ is that much more sweet. Not because foreigners are here, or even because Christians are here. Rather, because Christ has always been here.

That little girl was Christ to me. I thought that my momentary suffering justified my attitude. I thought that my love, sometimes my food, too, was the gift to be offered. But that little one reminded me that we, the Church, the body of Christ, rely on each other. That we need those who represent the wounds in that body for the working of our salvation. That there is so much left for us to receive.

My eyes have been opened to the heart of God for the poorest of the poor in the world. In response, I pray I am as willing to give my life, my possessions, and my love as freely as that sweet child saw worthy to give unto me. Amen.