A World of Hopeless Causes

My wife went to college to become a nurse. One day, she invited me to St. Jude's Hospital in Los Angeles. She was doing a rotation there and wanted me to get a taste of her work. Little did I know that her work involved caring for children with cancer.

We took the elevator to the cancer ward and spent the day singing silly songs, playing games, and shedding tears. Kids six, seven, and eight years old were hooked up to tubes and machines. Bald heads and yellow skin, and many of these children without a shred of hope for a long future. Cancer is for old people, not children, I thought.

Not until years later, reflecting on that afternoon in Los Angeles, would I recognize the encounter I'd had with a saint: an apostle, a companion, and perhaps the half brother of Jesus. Artists often depict him holding an image of Christ close to his chest. A brother of Jesus, and his follower. Jude is the saint most people know as the patron of hopeless causes.

Jude stood for the kids with tubes coming out of their frail, pale bodies. He is the saint of the panhandler shouting obscenities at the sky. A saint for the weirdos, the forgotten, and the voiceless. A saint for the disabled, the poor, and the unpopular. People like you and me. At the time, I had never connected Saint Jude with a hospital on a mission to stand in the gap for hopeless causes, a hospital for the people society often gives up on.

And yet, Saint Jude is a mystery. We know little about him beyond a couple of references in the Bible and a few murky details from church history. He may have been a brother of Jesus, and he likely died a martyr for the cause of Christ. Some depict Jude with a flame over his head, like the other apostles who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Others show him carrying a scroll or a carpenter's rule.

We know little about Jude, and maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. A saint for hopeless causes. An ambassador for the people who don't make headlines or make the rounds on social media. Jude shares the family line of Jesus, who came to serve, heal, love, and save. He is a saint working in the shadows, not in the limelight, representing the One who came for the sick, not the healthy. For the ones in the ICU, not the ones running marathons.

Jude came for people like you and me.

When I spent that day in the hospital with my future wife, among children dying of a horrific disease, we came to be a blessing. But another blessing snuck in through the back door. Those kids were far from healthy, yet they were filled with joy. They laughed, smiled, and wanted to hear our stories. We came to bless them, but they blessed us. My wife and I felt sorry for them because of their situation, and yet they were teaching us that the Kingdom of God belongs to children. Through their smiles, their bald heads, and the beeping machines, they revealed our own sickness. Our own need. By all appearances our bodies were healthy, but these kids exposed our own version of cancer.

The true hopeless cause wasn't lying in a hospital bed, hoping the chemotherapy would work. My wife and I were the ones who needed an examination. We came to help, and these kids helped us see the disease in our souls.

Over the centuries, the church came to see Jude as a saint worth emulating and gave him the title of patron of hopeless causes. He is the saint for the little girl with leukemia, praying for more days of life in a sterile hospital room. He is for the grieving mother who has lost a teenager to suicide. He defends the man who loses his job because of a criminal record or the color of his skin. Jude is for the folks who look funny, the ones who speak slowly, the sensitive souls in an insensitive world.

Jude speaks to our current predicament. We look at the hopeless causes in our communities and pity them, wishing them a better lot in life. Yet in our honest moments, we find that the hopeless cause is often the one staring back at us in the mirror.

Father, help us consider our true condition. May we know that the hopeless causes of the world often live in our own homes and souls. Thank you for the witness of Saint Jude and his willingness to stand for the helpless, the hopeless, the weak, and the voiceless. Give us eyes to see the One who ultimately stands for the sick, bruised, and battered in our midst, the One who died so we could live. Amen.