Charles Swindoll
wrote, “Who really cared? His was a routine admission to busy Bellevue
Hospital. A charity case, one among hundreds. A drunken bum from the Bowery
with a slashed throat. The Bowery … last stop before the morgue.
“The derelict’s
name was misspelled on the hospital form, but then what good is a name when
the guy’s a bum? The age was also incorrect. He was thirty-eight, not thirty-nine,
and looked twice that. Somebody might have remarked, “What a shame for
one so young,” but no one did. Because no one cared.
“His health
was gone and he was starving. He had been found lying in a heap, bleeding from
a deep gash in his throat. A doctor used black sewing thread to suture the wound.
Then the man was dumped in a paddy wagon and dropped off at Bellevue Hospital,
where he languished and died. But nobody really cared.
“A friend
seeking him was directed to the local morgue. There, among dozens of other nameless
corpses, he was identified. When they scraped together his belongings, they
found a ragged, dirty coat with thirty-eight cents in one pocket and a scrap
of paper in the other. All his earthly goods. Enough coins for another night
in the Bowery and five words, “Dear friends and gentle hearts.” Almost
like the words of a song, someone may have thought.
“Which would
have been correct, for once upon a time that man had written the songs that
literally made the whole world sing. Songs like “Camptown Races,”
“Oh! Susanna,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” “I Dream of Jeanie
with the Light Brown Hair,” “Old Folks at Home,” “My Old
Kentucky Home,” and two hundred more that have become deeply rooted in
our rich American heritage. Thanks to Stephen Collins Foster.
“Today, some
of these forgotten souls are in prison. Some in hospitals. Some in nursing homes.
And some silently slip into church on Sunday morning, confused and afraid. Do
you care? Enough “to show hospitality to strangers,” as Hebrews 13:2
puts it? It also says that in doing so, we occasionally “entertain angels
without knowing it.”
“Angels who
don’t look anything like angels. Some might even look like bums from the Bowery,
but they may have a song dying in their hearts because nobody knows and nobody
cares. Deep within many a forgotten life is a scrap of hope, a lonely melody
trying hard to return.”
– Dallas Seminary Daily Devotional, 9/12/03
View more sermon illustrations for inspiration for your next message.