The Price of Good News

I met a man yesterday at church named Frank.  Last week he lost his job at a major New York grocery chain.  Why?  Because he sold a 70¢ roll to a homeless woman for 30¢, which is all she had, and paid the difference himself.

Now, I’m not sure why that is such a terrible offense.  Perhaps it’s because it encouraged the woman to keep coming back.  Maybe it’s because such things offend the full-price customers.  I suppose it could be what you can’t do for all, you shouldn’t do for any.  What baffles me is why he didn’t get a promotion.  I recognize, of course, that compassion is probably not a value of the grocery store chain and thus something it would not reward.  I would have hoped, though, that management might have recognized Frank’s creativity and quick thinking that avoided what surely would have been an ugly scene, and no doubt a wasted 70¢ roll, over 40¢, which the store didn’t pay anyway.

It was such a vivid demonstration of the expectant Song of Mary as we head into the home stretch to Christmas:  “He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”  (Lk. 1:53)  No one ever said filling the hungry with good things wasn’t going to come at a price to someone. 

The Gospel is not only a story of good news proclaimed to the poor.  It is a story of the cost of proclaiming the good news, the cost of living the good news, the cost of being the good news.  The good news may be grace, but grace is not even cheap, to say nothing of free.

This Christmas when I hear the good news announced again, the same announcement the angels made to the shepherds in their fields keeping watch over their flocks by night, I’m going to be thinking of Frank.  “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”  (Lk. 2:10-11)  This is what I learned from Frank.  The good news has a cost.  Sometimes it’s 40¢.  Sometimes it’s a job.  Sometimes it’s a lot more.  That’s why the good news begins with a warning not to be afraid. 

Surely that’s why we celebrate this announcement with the giving of gifts.  We do it to remember that love has a cost.  We do it to remember that good news is not free.  We do it to remember that grace is not cheap.  Is that not what the story is all about—the story that begins with a baby born far from home in a stable, the story of an itinerant preacher and healer with no place to lay his head, the story of the cross, love’s ultimate cost.

That’s the reason, I believe, Frank let the homeless woman pay her 30¢ toward the roll.  Even dignity, although it may be a basic right, is not free for anyone.  Or maybe 40¢ is all Frank had.  Either way, both the woman and Frank certainly got their money’s worth of dignity, and much, much more. 

So, my dear friends, that’s my Christmas wish for us this year, that this season bring a reminder of the cost of good news, the cost of grace, the cost of dignity.  And, I hope for all of us the singing of angels all around to give us the courage to pay it.  Like Frank.

Peace,