Stop, Listen and Watch
by Pamela J. Tinnin



Before I went to seminary, Zack and I used to work at the Food Pantry 
sponsored by our church in Cloverdale. Every Friday, people would begin to line up
an hour ahead of time to get free groceries. We collected reject produce 
from the local grocery store, day-old bread and baked goods from the Orowheat Bakery, 
and donated canned and packaged foods.



I worked at the counter, checking people in, and marking their record cards. 
About half of those who came were Hispanic farm workers, 
desperately trying to raise their families on grape picker’s wages. 
They lived nine and ten to a motel room or in cabins on the farms where they worked. 
The rest were a mix of those folks who fell through the cracks—not qualified for welfare, 
newly unemployed without benefits, or so long unemployed they had no benefits left. 
Some of them lived in the same motels as the farm workers; others still hadn’t yet lost their own homes; 
more than a few lived in tents or campers down by the river.



Food distribution day was always hectic. There wasn’t much time for social chitchat 
as people were usually anxious to get their sack of groceries and leave. 
We always had two people working the counter. When someone new came in,  
I would help them fill out the forms. Sometimes it took a long time, 
especially when there was a language barrier. I must admit, 
I always hated it when a new person showed up—it just held things up and made people wait.



This one Friday, we were swamped, but managed to keep things moving right along—that is, 
until I looked up and saw someone I didn’t recognize. She was young, not more than nineteen or twenty, 
her pale skin covered with freckles, her eyes dark with worry. She had a chubby baby perched on one hip, 
and held the hand of a curly-headed toddler. Oh, no, I thought. This will take ages. Then the baby smiled at me, 
showing his two bottom teeth and I couldn’t help but smile back.



We moved to the other end of the counter, away from listening ears. One by one, 
I went through the questions on the form. Name…address…how many in the family… monthly income… 
The young woman’s name was Beth; she said the toddler’s name was Cindy, after Beth’s mother. 
The baby was David, named for his daddy. At the mention of the daddy, 
Beth took a deep, ragged breath, trying not to cry.



Lynn, the other woman at the counter checking people in, 
gave me one of those looks that says “hurry up, I need help.” Ordinarily I would have rushed Beth along, 
but for some reason I found myself asking her what had happened. 
It all came out in a rush—they were from Humboldt County, a place where the lumber industry 
was about the only industry left. She told me how they had married—she was pregnant at 16, the boy 17. 
Everything had gone fine until the mill closed and he’d lost his job. 
By then she was pregnant with the second baby. When his unemployment benefits ran out, 
so did her husband. “It’s not that he doesn’t love us,” she said. “He just couldn’t stay and watch us suffer.”



Now I had my problems with that theory, but I didn’t say anything. 
I finished filling out her form while she told me she was trying to get to San Diego where her sister lived. 
“Last night we slept in the car,” she said. “It wasn’t too bad—I locked the doors so nobody could bother us.”



Then she said something that surprised me. “If you can’t give us any food—
because we’re not from here and all—that’s okay. I feel a lot better…I guess more than anything, 
I just needed someone to listen.”



All of us have busy schedules—it’s just part of modern life. For that matter, 
maybe it’s been a part of life for a long, long time. After all, wasn’t Jesus always on the road to somewhere? 
In the story from this week’s Gospel, we see Jesus first of all surrounded by a crowd. 
He’s interrupted by Jairus, an important man in the synagogue. Jairus has a sad story, 
about how his daughter lies near death. He comes asking Jesus to lay hands on her, 
“so that she may be made well, and live.”



And what did Jesus do? He left and went with Jairus, and even then the crowd 
wouldn’t leave him be, but followed after him. He’s interrupted again, by a woman 
who has suffered for years with a hemorrhage. She crept up behind him and touched his garment, 
desperate for healing. In some mysterious way, Jesus senses her touch, 
and stops and asks who is it who touched his robe. And the woman comes forward and confesses. 
Jesus tells her that it is her faith that has made her whole.



By this time, some friends found Jairus and told him the bad news
—that his daughter was already dead and the situation was hopeless. 
But Jesus tells the man not to be afraid. They continue on to the ruler’s house 
where Jesus takes the child’s mother and father with him into the house, 
and calls the child forth from her bed. The little girl rises and Jesus says simply, 
“Give her something to eat.”



The Gospels are full of stories like these, miracles that come 
when someone reaches the end of his or her rope, when someone who has run out of chances 
tries one last resort. When we think about all the stories of Jesus’ ministry, we have to wonder, 
how did he ever get anything done? He was always being interrupted; 
he was always being called somewhere else. But he went when he was called; 
he did what needed to be done. In the midst of all the demands people made on him, 
he still found the time to minister to those who needed him most.



These days I notice how many of  us live not just "busy" lives, 
but "over-scheduled" lives—more and more of us scribble our daily appointments on calendars. 
Some people even have these little palm-sized electronic organizers. 
I even know children who keep a written schedule—soccer practice, piano lessons, a trip to the dentist. 
Others have efficient mothers who keep a family calendar. 
It seems like more and more of us run from one appointment to another.



And certainly as a pastor, I keep a calendar—the days of the weeks are filled with meetings, 
appointments, my scheduled office hours. But I’ve never seen anyone’s calendar, including my own, 
where there’s a time written in that says, “Listen and watch.” I do write in visiting hours; 
I jot down the names of those whom I need to see in a block of time. But the thing of it is, 
opportunities for ministry often come when we least expect it, and often it is with total strangers. 
If we schedule our lives to the point where we have no time to watch, no time to listen, 
the opportunities to reach out to those who more than anything just want us to see them, hear them, 
recognize their presence—they’ll be gone and it will be too late.



When I’d finished the last of Beth’s forms that day, I got up and took her back into the grocery section. 
We chose “road” food—peanut butter and jelly, three loaves of bread, a bag of apples and a bunch of bananas, 
some cans of tuna and potted meat, a small jar of mayonnaise. I threw in a box of graham crackers 
and a package of Pampers. We got them checked into the Wallace House Homeless Shelter for the night, 
filled up their gas tank, and I gave her $40. She hugged me, smiling and crying at the same time, 
and said it was just like Christmas. Early the next morning, I drove past Wallace House, 
but the old Buick was already gone. My prayer is that she and the two little ones arrived 
in San Diego safe and sound; that they found the new life they hoped for.



After that, whenever I worked at the food pantry, I tried to take more time with people. 
To be honest, a lot of times, I didn’t—there were always so many people and so much to do. 
But sometimes, when things got crazy and I found I wasn’t even saying hello to people, 
I’d suddenly remember that scared kid who more than anything just needed someone to talk to.



It’s only human to try and put things in order; to make a schedule; to control things. 
But life isn’t like that; doing God’s work isn’t like that. Sometimes we have to let the Spirit carry us where it will, 
as scary as that sometimes seems. We’ve got to leave space in our lives for those times 
when we will unexpectedly see Christ standing right there in front of us. Who knows? 
We may even see him in the eyes of a frightened, freckle-faced girl. And when we see Him, 
how can we turn away? How can we turn away?

(Comments to Pam at pamelatinnin@EARTHLINK.NET )