On L.A.’s skid row, the challenge of the Resurrection

I go to Mass almost every Sunday, but I try to avoid the big holidays. Especially Easter. In most Christian churches, Easter is a kind of triumphalistic affirmation of Christian certainty. My sense is that the Resurrection is not a celebration; it is a threat and a challenge. Even though I am a Catholic Worker and I live and work with the homeless and serve a meal at our soup kitchen every day, I don’t want to encounter the risen Christ, for how can any of us begin to measure up to his example?

Every morning I get up in our dark, unheated house, my feet freezing the moment I hit the floor. I am not a morning person. I am cranky at least until noon.

Today I am part of the morning crew. We sweep our garden-dining patio. And then we break out the hoses and water the plants and trees and flowers.

The hoses are old and leaky, full of kinks. I am in a bad mood, cursing at the hose and at the water running down into my tennis shoes, which will be cold and wet throughout the day.

“Excuse me,” comes a voice.

The last phrase I want to hear at 7 in the morning is “excuse me.”

“I am sorry, sir, we’re not open yet.” Actually, I am thinking, you are not supposed to be in here because we’re not open yet. Which incompetent Catholic Worker let you slip in?

“Could I use your restroom?” he persists.

He is an elderly black man bent over on his cane, with a battered suitcase at his side. He wants to use the bathroom. It’s 7 in the morning and our bathroom does not open till 9:30.

I could take him into our soup kitchen and let him use that bathroom, where we store our supplies. But the last time I did that we lost all of our hand soap containers. I could take him into the clinic, but the woman who runs it would not be to happy to have her setup time disrupted by a man who needs to use the bathroom when we’re not yet open.

In either case, I would have to take personal responsibility for him, abandon my job assignment and hang around until he finishes his business, which, from past experience, I know will take awhile. When you let a homeless person with no access to sanitary facilities use your bathroom, he’s going to make the most of it, not just urinating and defecating but turning the bathroom sink and floor into a makeshift shower and laundry. He’s likely to take off his shirt and pants and wash his entire body and his clothes as well. Once a homeless person occupies your bathroom, even a court order has no power to disrupt the urgency of his sanitary needs.

“Please, sir, I really need to use the bathroom.” His voice is frantic now.

My shoes are still wet and I am still cold and cranky, my alternatives are unpleasant and I’m thinking quick on my feet, so I say, “Where did you go yesterday?”

“I went to the Midnight Mission” (which is four blocks away), he says.

“Well, why don’t you go back there?”

“Please, I don’t think I could make it, sir.”

“Well you can’t go here! We’re not open till 9:30.”

Not a very Christian response, right? I could just blame it on the heartlessness of a city bureaucracy that took away the 30 portable toilets we fought so hard to get. I could blame it on a lack of personnel to make our own facilities available for longer hours. I could blame it on the police who give out citations to homeless people who urinate and defecate on the street.

But I could also say, perhaps more honestly, that I don’t want to be challenged by the risen Christ in the person of an elderly black man leaning over his cane with his suitcase at his side, who needs to use the bathroom. I might be cranky and cold and wet and full of excuses.

What if this man had arrived on Easter morning, and I had turned Jesus Christ out to do his business in the streets like every other homeless man and woman in our city?

For me, the Resurrection is frightening and challenging.

Jeff Dietrich is a member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. His most recent book is “Broken and Shared: Food, Dignity and the Poor on Los Angeles’ Skid Row.”