In this Sunday's gospel reading, Jesus says that when we give to people in need, we give to him. He says people in need are “his family.” So… what does that make us?
It can be very easy, when we try to wrap our minds around this vision Jesus lays out, to get into “us” and “them” thinking. If we are to care for the hungry, the naked, the incarcerated, the stranger, the thirsty, the sick, then we must be okay. They are “the needy,” we are “the givers.” We can forget that we are often on the receiving end of someone else’s giving… sometimes the very people we think we are caring for.
A few years ago, my congregation had a wonderful ministry among people who were homeless in the south end of Stamford. It started with a monthly healing service, which turned into a weekly bible study at the shelter, and then spilled onto the streets as we reached out to those who wouldn’t come in. A few parishioners made sandwiches and brought soup and gave them out to a group that hung out there partying. And then they said, “Anybody want a prayer?” Every hand went up. Even the biggest, toughest guys wanted prayer. So they prayed.
The next time we went, after we offered prayer, the leader said, “I’ve got a cold. Would you pray for me?” And she was engulfed in the group as everyone came and laid hands on her and prayed for her. And then they went back to drinking and cussing!
Who was the giver? Who was the givee? We became one community out there on the sidewalk, and Christ was discernible in all of us. Jesus invites us to find him in people to whom we offer love. Let's not forget that others have found him in us.
Can you think of a time when someone regarded you with eyes of love, maybe when you didn’t feel you deserved it? Did you know Jesus was looking at you?
Can you think of a time you found yourself able to love someone unlovable, or care for someone in extreme need when you didn’t particularly feel like it? Did you feel Jesus loving through you? I want to develop the spiritual practice of remembering in such encounters, “This is a child of God,” to start by honoring God’s creation in front of me. I’m praying for the grace to make that my first response.
We might pray today to be given the faith vision to see Jesus in unlikely people. And we might ask for the Holy Spirit to make Christ visible in us, and for the grace to become more transparent. And we might thank Jesus for having invited us to be his family too.
I found myself thinking this week of those mobile phone ads that had the guy going all over the country saying, “Can you hear me now?” to demonstrate the breadth of the cell network. I think Jesus is saying to us, “Can you see me now? Look, now I’m in this person, now I’m in that one.” And also in you, and in me, in a "cell network" that has no end.
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