The interstate was shut-down due to an accident, so we unhappy motorists clogged the side streets of the towns that run adjacent to I-95. As we inched along in an effort to find an open on-ramp to return to the highway, it was evident that impatience and frustration reigned supreme that afternoon.
Approaching an intersection just north of Claymont at the Delaware state line, I watched a raggedly-dressed man stumble down the sidewalk, brown bag in hand. Admittedly, a judgmental thought or two raced through my mind about this stranger now standing close to my car, and I wondered whether or not he would tap on my window and ask for money.
And then – as God always seems to have a way of doing – something quite unexpected happened. The man whom I assumed was a panhandler opened his bag, crouched to the ground, and waited. Within a minute, squirrels seemed to dart from everywhere to the place where this man was. A pigeon or two appeared as well. This man whom I was so quick to judge as homeless and in need of my help was instead feeding the very creatures that came up to him without fear. It was almost as if I was watching a modern-day St. Francis of Assisi right there on some non-descript corner in Claymont.
Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel that the poor – those who possess true gentleness of spirit – are the ones who have the Kingdom of God within them. Thanks to a traffic jam and a gentle soul who fed the squirrels in a rivertown that time has forgotten, I was reminded of the call each of us has to allow the Kingdom to grow wherever we may find ourselves. Woe to us if we fail to do so.