Jesus said, “Just as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.” Matt. 25:40
It’s hard to see the “least of these.” Harder to watch. Yet, when I can, it stirs a place in my soul, as it did just recently. I’d taken an elderly friend who’d developed a 103.6 fever to our local hospital emergency room. Now, I’m no stranger to the ER. I’ve spent my share of time there.
But on this night, if you could roll all my former visits into one you still couldn’t match the acute level of suffering and despair I witnessed. My friend and I took the last two seats. Many more patients waited in the hallway, some sitting on the floor. I couldn’t see all of them but one I could see was making herself known.
“You f…’in bastard! I hate you!” she screamed at each person as they walked by, flailing her arms and thrashing her whole body as she lunged forward in her wheelchair. She was young, maybe early twenties and looked disheveled, unkept. A security guard at the exit door stood stoic. Several people with her kept making random, feeble, attempts to quiet the noise. Finally, they took turns resting, leaning their heads against the wall.
In the waiting room, a young man moved from one distorted position to another on the floor. He seemed unable to find a good spot where he wasn’t in pain. And before we knew it, he rushed to get a barf bag and was in the corner violently throwing up. His screeching, gaging sounds, let loose all over the ER. One of the nurses gave him a light blanket and, for a little while, he was still and quiet on the floor. Then, he’d start to move again and throw up. This cycle repeated itself a number of times during the hours we waited.
And then there was Jonathan, as the ER staff called him, not his real name. It was his third visit there that day. Jonathan talked to himself a lot. He was confused and incoherent. His clothes were beyond dirty. At one point, he needed to go to the bathroom and kept yelling, slurring, “Bathroom!” He couldn’t figure out how to get his wheelchair to move toward the door. When it seemed no one was available to help, I pushed him out into the hallway and asked the security guard if there was someone who could take him to the bathroom. The guard responded, offhandedly, that he’d do it.
After over five hours, my friend did finally get seen. As we were leaving, I thought about the group of nurses there during the night. They were scrambling, working so hard to keep up with it all, an exhausting range of physical, emotional and mental health crises, the toll of human suffering, particularly poignant and piercing on this night, the screams, desperation, the smells.
At one point, close to midnight with the waiting room still full, one of the nurses came out and said, “Please have patience folks. We’re doing the best we can. We’ll get to you as soon as we possibly can.” She was hunched slightly forward and had a soft apologetic gaze. She looked to be carrying all of us and time was running out on her endurance.
The next day, as I read again about how Trump’s “big beautiful bill” could cause ten million people to lose their health insurance, I thought about how much more crowded our ERs are about to get. In particular, more patients like the woman in the hallway, the young man on the floor, and Jonathan.
I’d recommend, before voting on any legislation that would disproportionately impact the most vulnerable, lawmakers should be required to spend time in some of the places where “the least of these,” can be found: the local food pantries, shelters, and ERs. Hear their screams, smell their vomit, push their wheelchairs. As it’s reported that over half of our legislators are millionaires, it’s probably been a while, if ever, since they’ve found themselves in such places.
And given that many who voted for the “big beautiful bill” would profess to be Christian, I could only hope that in visiting such places, some might also get stirred and remember, with a sober and humble heart, that key teaching of Jesus. Because unlike the biblical teaching where the least among us are served, the “big beautiful bill” hurts “the least of these.” Sobering, indeed.
But, just perhaps, if the soul were moved, I’d hope they’d renounce their current actions and, instead, follow Jesus’ teaching and do what I believe he would do. They’d make sure the young woman in the hallway got caring mental health services, the young man a supportive detox unit, and Jonathan appropriate treatment and medications and, maybe, perhaps most special of all, a clean set of clothes.
For after all, “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Matt. 16:26
Stephanie Rutt 