The man was dying.

Not actively, as we say when we are confident that death will come in less than hundreds of minutes. We were talking. The dying wasn’t as quickly as he wanted.

He was thirsty. The medication and the pain were drying his mouth.

He gestured with his head to a plastic cup by the sink.

“Is it okay if I help?” I said. He nodded.

I used the little blue sponge on a tootsie pop stick to give him water. I refilled the song three times. It was much less than an espresso cup holds.

It was, I thought suddenly, like the story of giving Jesus vinegar on the cross. I mean, not at all the same. But the gaunt face, approaching death, speaking three words at a time, helpless to help himself. That part.

I only knew a tiny bit of his story. He told me a bit more. I read more later. It’s a complicated story.

He died. It took a couple more days. And I’ve thought a lot about implications and meanings and lessons. Though I struggle with using the life and death of a person as a lesson. And I was doing my job as a chaplain, the way you do your job as a welder or as a teacher or as a prayer. I wasn’t going out of my way to serve.

But I think I got a tiny glimpse of what Jesus was hoping we’d hear:

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’“