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January 26, 2003 Third Sunday of the Year
† Jesus said to the fishermen, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men."
-Mark 1:14-20
FILE UNDER FRIEND...
Mark was hurrying down the busy street to a meeting.
"Can I have something for my file, mister?"
Mark turned around to see who was talking to him. The grimy box under the man's arm gave him away immediately. Definitely a crazy, Mark thought. Crazies are always carrying something, usually a shopping bag, or pushing a cart.
"Sorry, no money." Mark repeated the old lie so often it came out automatically.
"Have you got anything for my file?" the man asked again.
Mark fished through his coat pocket for some piece of paper that would satisfy the poor soul's delusion. He found an old travel brochure and handed it to him.
"No!" he shouted. "I don't have a file for that."
While Mark fished around for something else, the man said, "I'm Howard. What's your name?"
"Mark." The one syllable was all he would offer--Mark did not want to risk any more involvement than that.
"I'm sorry, I have to go," Mark said, and hurried off. As he looked behind him, he saw Howard scratching something on a dirty scrap of paper.
A few days later, Mark was walking down the same street. An ambulance, its warning lights glaring, blocked the corner. Two EMTs were desperately treating a man dressed in rags and covered with blood. Their efforts were hopeless. A policeman questioned some people who had witnessed the accident, but no one knew anything. "Did anybody know this guy?" The policeman asked the crowd who had gathered.
"His name is Howard. That's all I know," Mark offered. Then he backed away like everyone else, as if knowing the crazy's name made him crazy, too.
"Well, at least there'll be a name for the headstone. Thanks for your help." The policeman said. "Oh by the way, would you take this for me?" I'd like to skip the paperwork on this one"
The policeman shoved into Mark's hands the box Howard was carrying.
" Why would I want this guy's garbage?"
Looking for a trash can, Mark started looking through the contents of the box. You never know, Mark thought. But there was nothing in the box but some old clothes and a file folder. The crude printing on the file folder read Friends. Inside the folder, Mark found a single scrap of paper. On it was written Mark.
[ Ted Brooks, Servant, March/April 1989.]
CONNECTION: Harold Kushner writes in his book Living a Life That Matters: "Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher and theologian, wrote that God is often found not in people but between people. When you and I are truly attuned to each other, God comes down and fills the space between us so that we are connected, not separated. Both love and true friendship are more than a way of knowing that we matter to someone else. They are a way of mattering to the world, bringing God into a world that would otherwise be
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