In the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Maggie Smith plays Muriel Donnelly, a cranky British retiree living in a dilapidated hotel in Jaipur, India. She is wheelchair-bound so the hotel staff assigned a Dalit or outcaste woman to care for her.
The woman invites Muriel to her home so that her whole family can meet her. Muriel goes with a translator because the Dalit woman and her family don’t speak English. When the Dalit woman showers Muriel with food and hospitality, Muriel asked the translator why. The translator responds, “Because you have been kind to her.” Mariel shamefully responds, “But I haven’t been kind. “The translator responds, “You’re the only one who acknowledges her. “
For a poor, Dalit woman, the fact that Mariel saw her and talked with her, even though it was more at her, was an acknowledgment of her worth and their common humanity. When we go out as pursuers in eternal relationship with Jesus, we start to see people no one else sees. God’s heart becomes our heart.
