I heard this story friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend style, so I can’t vouch for its strict accuracy. But true or not, it makes a powerful point.
A Christian visitor came to Mother Theresa’s ministry in Calcutta to find out more about how she did ministry. She asked him, “Do you want to see Jesus?” He said yes. She brought him over to a dying man and instructed him to hold the man’s head in his lap, look into his eyes and just sit there with him. For hours. That was a life-changing time for the Christian visitor.
What made Mother Theresa’s ministry to the poor so powerful is the incarnational nature of it. Coming right alongside the poor, close up. A willingness to minister to the poorest of the poor, living among them, becoming one of them. And she knew something important: the poor incarnate Jesus for us. We can see him in them.