A Parable

I saw this story today, on Day One of my having a blog, and at the risk of over-blogging, I thought it was worth noting.

http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/nfl_tracker/posts/25101?eref=fromSI

We (the popular culture of the good ol' US of A) are good at hero-worship and professional athletes garner a fair bit of our lavished praise. ("Look how skilled he is, how competitive, how very inspiring to young people who want an athletic career!") But this is something else.

OK, so Tony Romo can afford to pay for lots of homeless guys to see movies. He could buy them lots of dinners, as well.

But here's what I like about what El Quarterback de Los Vaqueros de Dallas did: He treated "Doc the Homeless Guy" like Doc the Person. Bought Doc a ticket and invited him to sit down and watch a movie. When Doc was worried about smelling bad, Tony said not to worry about it, he was used to locker rooms.

Tony the Famous Quarterback treated Doc the Homeless Guy like a friend.

We have enough money in the world to solve the problems of homelessness and poverty. The problem is not a lack of money. The problem is that we see the poor and the hungry as Other. Problems. Inconveniences. Not Like Us.

Money we have, compassion we lack.

No, taking a guy to the movie won't solve all of his problems, let alone the world's. But maybe this is a glimpse of how the world's problems might get solved. Not simply with money but with compassion and relationship.

I think that this might be a parable.

Jesus says, "The Kingdom of God is like this: a multi-millionaire, famous quarterback took a homeless guy to watch a slapstick movie. They sat together, ate popcorn and they laughed like friends. Oh, and the movie they were watching? It was called Role Models."