Throw Away People

Have you seen the movie "The Dark Knight", the second in the "new" series of Batman movies? In it there are two ferries rigged with explosives, one is filled with convicted criminals (and guards), the other is filled with "normal" people. Each ferry is given a time limit to decide whether to blow up the other ferry or if time expires have both ferries blow up. Some of the discussion on the "normal" ferry essentially revolved around the fact that the criminals on the other ferry don't deserve to live as much as the "normal" people so they should go ahead and blow up the other ferry before they get killed themselves.

I think we as a society have a tendency to treat certain people or groups as throw away people. Whether they are drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, homeless, etc. we don't really see them as being on the same level as us normal people. Many consider these "throw away people" as beyond help or worse not even worth helping. Jesus experienced that mindset too. Mark 2:15-17 tells of a time when Jesus was eating with the tax collectors and "sinners" (side note - whenever Jesus ate with anyone he was eating with sinners) and the Pharisees were quite upset that Jesus would have the nerve to eat with these throw away people. Jesus actually made a habit of hanging out with sick people, tax collectors, prostitutes, yet the religious leaders of his time thought that he was wrong for doing so. Many people today feel the same way.

On Friday I had the honor of officiating the funeral service of one of these "throw away people", only she wasn't throw away. Her name was Paula Stierns and she lived in Sultan with her husband Sterno and her dog Bubba-Do. Most people who saw Paula the last several years of her life probably didn't look beyond her homelessness and her alcoholism. Many probably saw her as a throw away person, or worse yet didn't even see her because it wasn't worth it to them to even acknowledge that she was there. Someone hit and killed Paula a couple of weeks ago as she was crossing a bridge in Sultan no more than a couple of hundred feet from where she "lived". That person has still not been caught and has not come forward. The story has received some news coverage but I can't help but think that if a "normal" mom, wife, sister had been killed in a hit and run it would have received much more coverage. Although we only knew Paula as a homeless person that struggled with alcohol and almost died at least twice largely because of the lifestyle she chose to live, we didn't see her as throw away. Paula was a real person with real problems but Paula was also someone who loved others, who wanted to help, who would share what little she had so others didn't go with out. Paula was someone that Jesus loved as much as he loves any of us. Paula was someone that we loved too.