A Yellow Rose and Two Cans of Soup – Greg Albrecht

“Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

My neighbor stood in the supermarket checkout line just behind him. He was mid-70s, dressed in outdated but clean and well-pressed clothing. He had placed a yellow rose and two cans of soup on the conveyor belt leading to the cashier.

After the cashier totaled the price of the yellow rose and two cans of soup, the senior citizen reached into the pocket of his well-worn trousers only to find them empty. The look on his face quickly morphed from confusion to dismay and acute humiliation.

My neighbor, with parents about the same age as the confused, befuddled and ashamed man, stepped forward and gave the cashier a $20 bill to pay for the yellow rose and two cans of soup and told the cashier to give the man the change. The older gentleman, relief flooding across his moments-before anguished facial expression of hopelessness, thanked her profusely and walked away.

A few minutes later, pushing her shopping cart full of food toward her car in the parking lot, my neighbor passed the man who was now leaning against the side of the building, head down, sobbing. She stopped and they talked.

His wife died a year ago, after a long illness whose costs exhausted all their insurance and then consumed all their savings. The yellow rose was for her. The two cans of soup were for his dinner he would prepare in the room he rented in a house nearby.

They talked – they cried together, two strangers confronting one of the ugly realities of the human condition. Then she hugged him and continued on her way to pack her bags of groceries into her car. She opened the car door, sat down in the driver’s seat, but she could not drive away. Instead, she slumped over her steering wheel and cried as she had not for a long time.

My neighbor wept for similar reasons as Jesus did at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Many are least and lost and grieving … we cannot help them all, but we can make a difference in the lives of some. It may seem a bold, idealistic, audacious and even silly conclusion, but Jesus insists when we help the least and the lost we do it for Him.

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