The person by the door
I walk into the supermarket thinking about the shopping, what we need at home, how much time I have and what I must do next. By the automatic doors I meet someone asking for help. Their presence does not always please me. There are many people asking, and I see them in many places; sometimes I am tired, sometimes I do not want to stop, and sometimes I worry that every gesture will become an obligation I must repeat. It would not be honest to pretend I always feel immediately generous.
Yet just when I want to walk past, a passage from the Gospel comes back to me: Jesus speaks of being hungry and being given food, and also reproaches those who did not help someone who was hungry. In Matthew 25 he connects the way we treat a person in need with the way we treat him. The ordinary scene outside the supermarket no longer seems quite so ordinary.
What if it really were him?
I catch myself asking an almost childlike question: what if that person were Jesus, right there in front of me, without my recognising him? What if one day he asked why I walked straight past? I know the Gospel is not a game of disguises and that the person sitting by the door should not have to prove they are someone special in order to deserve respect. Still, this image can interrupt my indifference more effectively than many abstract arguments.
At first, I admit, there is self-interest in the question too: I do not want to be the one reproached for failing to see. It is not the noblest motive. But it may be the beginning of a journey. A gesture born of fear can become attention; attention can become a sincere question; and a question can sometimes lead to an encounter. Compassion matures when I stop wondering how I will be judged and start asking what the person before me actually needs.
Not a symbol, a person
To say that I may meet Jesus in someone who is suffering is not to erase that person’s identity. They are not an exam placed in my path, an extra in the drama of my conscience or a lesson prepared for my children. They have a name, a past, wishes and relationships; perhaps they have lost a job, perhaps they are ill, or perhaps their story is entirely different from what I imagine. I may never know it. The first form of respect is to recognise that they do not owe it to me.
Giving a little money, offering something to eat, asking “how are you?” or simply saying hello are different gestures, not one compulsory formula. I can choose according to my means and the circumstances without turning a person into a problem to solve in thirty seconds. I may even give nothing, but I can avoid looking through them as if they were invisible. Dignity should not depend on what is in my wallet.
“There is Jesus,” in front of my children
When I go to the supermarket with one of my children, I sometimes exclaim, “There is Jesus.” It is a phrase that belongs to our family, a simple way of remembering that the person before us is not merely an obstacle between the car park and the shopping. I would like my children to understand what I mean: it is not a label to place on a stranger, but a reminder addressed first of all to me, to the way I choose to behave.
Children learn more from what they see us do than from explanations given at home. If I talk about love and then respond with annoyance or contempt, they will remember the contempt. If I stop discreetly, listen to an answer and respect even a refusal, they will see that generosity is not a performance. I do not want to teach them to feel superior because they have given something. I want to teach them not to be ashamed to meet the eyes of someone who asks.
Helping without claiming to save the world
I cannot help everyone I meet. No one can do that alone, and an occasional gift does not solve the causes of poverty. On some days I have time, money or energy; on others I do not. Recognising this limit is not an excuse for indifference. It is a way to make generosity sustainable instead of promising myself an impossible perfection and then giving up entirely.
Compassion can take different forms: a little direct help, a meal, a conversation, regular support for people who work locally, or attention to the collective choices that determine how many people are left alone. I do not have to choose between a small gesture and the larger question of justice: the first can remind me of the second. And when I cannot do what I would wish, I can still avoid adding humiliation to someone else’s hardship.
The story I do not know
The thought that begins outside the supermarket follows me elsewhere: I never completely know the person standing before me. Someone may be carrying a recent loss, a fear, a wound or a day that has been harder than mine. They may be happy, distracted, vulnerable or irritable. I see a face and a gesture, not the whole life that came before them. Yet how often do we act as though a second’s observation were enough to pronounce a verdict?
Not knowing someone’s story does not oblige me to trust blindly, always say yes or abandon my boundaries. It asks something simpler and harder: to leave open the possibility that my first impression is wrong. A person asking for help is more than the need they show. Someone who disagrees with me is more than the irritation I feel. And I would not want to be judged solely by my worst moment either.
The same uncertainty on a different road
There is also a prudent side to this idea. On the motorway, someone answers a stranger with an offensive gesture; later the two meet at the same service station and the tension may escalate. An inappropriate remark to a young woman, made without considering her, those close to her or the situation, can be harassment or ignite a conflict. An argument over a parking space can grow far beyond the importance of that space. These are examples of possible escalation, not the inevitable outcome of every disagreement.
The lesson is not that everyone is dangerous or that we should live in suspicion of strangers. It is that a gesture made in an instant enters the life of a person I do not know and has consequences I cannot control. Respect is owed even where there is no risk of retaliation; prudence simply adds a practical reason not to hand control of our actions to anger. Faced with a threat, of course, the first priority is to leave and seek help, not to insist on a confrontation.
Kindness does not mean surrender
I can be firm without insulting, refuse a request without humiliating, defend my space without provoking. Lowering my voice does not mean admitting I am wrong. Sometimes the bravest choice is to give up the last word, especially when the other person does not want to understand and the conversation is turning into a contest of strength. This is true on the road, in a queue, at work and even at home.
There is a vast distance between saying “I do not know who you are, so I fear you” and saying “I do not know who you are, so I will not pretend I already understand you.” The first builds walls; the second leaves room for prudence and curiosity. Not every encounter will become a beautiful story. But I can almost always choose not to make it worse through pride, haste or contempt.
What I would like to leave my children
I would like to leave you this small exercise in seeing. When you meet someone who asks for help, do not force yourself into a gesture for show, and do not imagine you own their story. Stop if you can; call them a person before calling them a problem; do what is possible with discretion. And when you cannot help, do not withhold a greeting, calmness or respect.
I would also like you to remember the same principle when a stranger makes you angry. You do not know who they are, what they are going through or where a provocation may lead. Kindness will not make you naïve if you join it with good sense and necessary boundaries. It can help you avoid giving your impulses the power to decide who you want to be. Outside those automatic doors, I am still trying to learn this myself. When I say “There is Jesus,” perhaps I am speaking above all to myself: look more carefully before you walk on.
Reference: Gospel according to Matthew 25:35–40.
Papy