For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Matthew 12

“Hey baby!”

If you went to Creighton in the last 20 or 30 years, this likely evokes memories of one of the best- loved people on campus. Only she didn’t teach philosophy or English. She checked freshmen into the cafeteria and students who have forgotten the rest of us remember her.

Everyone called her simply the “Hey baby lady.” I’m ashamed that I never learned her name even though she was legendary.

Every year when I asked my PR students who best lived our Jesuit mission of caring for others, she always won. In her warm, unassuming way, she did the will of our heavenly Father by being unfailingly kind to kids whose affluence might have irked her.

She set an example to how to be a relative of Jesus as described in today’s passage from Matthew.

Jesus tells us what really counts for membership in his family is not blood ties, race, gender or even creed but doing God’s will – essentially living the two great commandments to love God and our neighbors.

I’m meditating on this passage at a time when many of us are reflecting uncomfortably on racial and status privileges we have taken for granted.

We don’t have to yell “white power” from a golf cart to be guilty of excluding others from our kinship. Those of us who were lucky enough to assume we would get an education tend to forget that not everyone came from families who could give their kids this kind of leg up in life. I even experienced a taste of this at a high level when I started at Creighton without a Ph.D. I got subtle messages from some faculty that I didn’t quite belong in their club. That changed the minute I acquired those three sacred letters but it taught me a lesson about status bias.

Jesus doesn’t ask us how many years we went to school, how much money we make or what neighborhood we live in. He only cares if we have been kind and if we look up to our moral superiors like the “Hey baby” employee.

One of the few good things about life under Covid 19 is that it is making some of us appreciate people we might have formerly treated as invisible like grocery store clerks. Yesterday after I noticed how carefully a young man at HyVee cleaned the checkout line, I thanked him. He said he hoped he did a good enough job. WOW! I know he’s one of Jesus’ brothers and I hope I can join that family.