LOVE INCARNATION

I was reflecting on Jesus’ statement in Matthew 25 that the “least of these” are the ones that He identifies Himself with the most. And then it occurred to me that if we (the Church) are the hands and feet of Jesus, (actually His Body in this world), then we are Jesus whenever we go out and serve and love the “least of these” around us.

So, that means we are Jesus to the least, and the least are Jesus to us in that holy moment of loving and giving and serving and receiving His love.

 

Maybe that’s why I love serving others so much? It’s where I feel most like Jesus, and it’s where I meet Jesus in the faces of others, and it’s where Jesus meets me as I share His love with those He most identifies with in this world.

 

But that’s not all. I also started to ponder the term “the least of these” that Jesus uses to describe the poor, the broken, the imprisoned, the outcast, the immigrant, and the hungry. What did He mean by that phrase? Does Jesus really consider these people to be “the least” among us? Are they second class citizens who are only fit to be pitied and fed like helpless puppies? I doubt that very much. Especially since Jesus says that they are somehow the embodiment of Himself in this world.

 

The “least of these” are like Jesus. So, does that mean that if we consider the poor and the immigrant and the imprisoned to be “less than” the rest of us, this is how we really feel about Jesus?

 

Maybe what Jesus really meant by the phrase “the least of these” is that they are, like Him, worthy to be loved and honored as fellow human beings?

 

We know that Jesus left His throne in Glory and stepped down into humanity to become not only “one of us” but intentionally poor, “taking on the form of a servant”, “he became nothing” (see Philippians 2) and, on purpose, placed Himself into the womb of a poor, peasant girl named Mary.

 

This same Mary who was amazed that God would be “mindful of the humble state of his servant” (see Luke 1:48), and who couldn’t afford to bring the required Lamb sacrifice into the temple when it was time to dedicate her son, but had to bring two doves instead – the caveat made for those who could not afford a lamb. (see Luke 2:22-24 and Lev.12:8)

 

We have to remember that in the Kingdom of God things appear upside down to us. It’s not that they really are upside down. It’s this world and our way of thinking that needs to be turned right side up.

 

So, when Jesus says that the poor are “the least of these”, He’s using language that our untrained minds can comprehend. He wants us to be sure that we know exactly which people He’s talking about; He means “the poor in the eyes of the world.” (see James 2:5)

 

But those whom we call poor are, in actuality, the rich in God’s economy. They are the blessed ones. They shall be filled. They shall inherit the Earth. They shall receive the Kingdom of God. They will laugh. They will be satisfied.

 

You know who really are "the least" among us? The rich. The proud. The famous. The self-sufficient.

 

"But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets." (Luke 6:24:26)

 

Remember the poor. They are the VIP’s in God’s organization. They are the very ones that Peter, James, John and Paul all agreed they should always remember whenever they went out to preach the Gospel or to plant new churches; something that Paul "had been eager to do all along." (see Galatians 2:10)

 

When we follow Jesus’ commands to love and serve the poor, we enter into a holy communion established between Jesus’ hands and feet (the Church) and Jesus’ heart and soul (the least of these).

 

We get to be Jesus to the least, and the least get to be Jesus to us. This is all part of God’s amazing plan to destroy the evil systems of greed and selfishness in this fallen world; to overcome evil with good, and to confound the wise with foolishness.

 

Don’t miss your chance to love subversively and overthrow the powers of darkness with compassionate acts of sedition today.

 

Let the Kingdom come!

-kg

PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB - JANUARY 2012

PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB
We will fight for peace, but we will do no violence

THE RULES:
The first rule of Pacifist Fight Club is, you do not talk about Pacifist Fight Club.
The second rule is, you must move from talk to action.
The third rule is, you must love all people, at all times.
The fourth rule is, you must engage in a fight to the death daily as you struggle against your own apathy, selfishness, prejudice and pride.
The fifth rule is, you must do violence only to the status quo of your life.

OUR TOPICS
Non-violence
Solidarity with the poor
Immigration reform
Loving God
Loving others

OUR POTENTIAL FIGHTERS
Brandt Russo
Chase Andre
Thomas Crisp
Keith Giles

Fighters enter the ring in January of 2012.

More info to come.

HOMELESS FAMILY IN NEED

I've been running around today trying to help a family with a 3 week old baby. We met them on Sunday for the first time at the motel church. The father is hispanic and I believe he's here legally. The mother is from South Carolina but they're both unemployed right now. Living at the motel (for at least another week) until they figure something out.

What I'm learning is that all the different non-profits and shelters in Orange County are completely useless. Most of them have a waiting list of at least two weeks or more. None of them have empty beds to offer. And all of them have different hoops to jump through. The Christian groups won't help you if you aren't married. (They're not). Some of them require you to be employed and demand some or all of your paycheck, others require you to be unemployed and ask you to quit your job to enter their program. (So they can help you find a job later?) It's madness.

So, after making a few phone calls to people I know and trust, it came down to this: They could either take their 3 week old baby girl into a homeless shelter (Salvation Army) and sleep apart on either end of a segregated facility, or the mom could take her baby and sleep at a women's shelter (because they don't take men) and the father could sleep on a park bench and hope he didn't get arrested for "public camping".

What really breaks my heart is knowing that organizations that I've championed for years cannot do a thing to actually help these people. The truth is, I'm learning, they never were capable of actually helping anyone beyond the 10 or 12 people they were currently helping, even though they were receiving millions of dollars a year from the Government to fight homelessness in Orange County. (Most of their funding finances are spent on paying their staff and keeping the lights on in their facilities).

I think when it really comes down to it the only real solution to helping people like this are you and me. The followers of Jesus have to step up and help. We have to invest our lives in their lives. We have to let them sleep on our couches, or lend them money to buy food, or share our resources with them, or put them up in a motel until they can get help, or they will never get off the streets.

The system is designed to keep people on the streets. The motels they stay at nickel and dime them for every little thing. You can't use the phone in your motel room because the management charges you more than it costs to walk across the street to use the pay phone bolted to the telephone pole.

You can't get a job because you don't have a computer to type out a resume, or the money it takes to pay Kinko's $4 an hour to use their computer and print from their printers. Even if you do have that money, you still need more for the bus pass to get to the Kinko's, and with your 3 week old baby under your arm and no diapers or food for her, not to mention no food for yourself either, it's going to be hard to justify that $7 for a resume at Kinkos when your baby is crying out in hunger.

If you don't have a car and you spend your last $5.00 to take a 3 and a half hour bus ride to get your social security card and find out that they won't see you until you run over to the courthouse to get something signed or stamped (another 30 minute bus ride), then you've wasted an entire day for nothing. This sort of thing happens all the time.

All we can do is help one person, or one family like this, at a time. The system is broken. The shelters are full. The rescue mission is understaffed and their waiting lists are so long that people will die of exposure before they get one of those beds.

Only those who claim to follow Jesus can ever hope to make a difference. How? By giving until it hurts and by serving those who can never pay us back. By sharing what we don't want to give up and by allowing the problems of the homeless and the poor to become our problems.

We'll have to love more than we think we can. We'll have to give more than we're expecting to. We'll have to do even greater things than these.

-kg

REMEMBER THE POOR

"All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along." - (Galatians 2:10)

A few years ago I threw a small party at my house. One of my friends wanted to make something for everyone but we were out of a few special ingredients. So, my friend hopped in the car to go and buy what we needed at a nearby grocery store.

When my friend returned I met him at the door. "What took you so long?" I asked, and then I noticed that my friend wasn't wearing any shoes.

"Did you run out of here and forget your shoes?"

My friend came into the house and set the grocery bags on the floor. "No," he said.

I was confused. "How did you end up losing your shoes at the grocery store?"

My friend explained, "When I came out of the store I saw a homeless man digging through the trash outside in the parking lot, but I was in a hurry because I knew everyone was waiting for me to get back. I jumped in the car and made it almost to the street before I heard the Lord tell me to turn around. So, I backed up and parked the car and walked over to the man. I asked him if he was hungry and if he wanted me to buy him some food. He said, no thanks. So, I asked him why he was digging through the trash and he said he was looking for some shoes. I looked down at his feet and his shoes were ragged and torn. That's when I noticed, standing there beside him, that my feet were the same size as his. So, I took off my shoes and gave them to the man."

As my friend told this story to me, my eyes filled with tears of amazement. I couldn't help but wonder, "Would I have done that? Would I have taken off my shoes and given them to a stranger?"

The followers of Jesus are held to a higher standard of love than others. We're commanded not only to love God, and to love our neighbors, but to love those who don't love us, and to care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger all the same.

My family has been reading through the book of Acts together in the morning before we start our day. It's been fascinating to see how people who were filled with the Holy Spirit of God and overjoyed about the coming of the Messiah couldn't help but share all that they had with one another out of love. When the scriptures tell us, that "...there was no needy person among them" (Acts 4:33-34) it doesn't mean that they didn't have any poor people in their church. Can we say the same of our churches today?

The word "Compassion" means "to suffer with". It means that when we see the pain of others, we are also in pain. We must care for them as we would care for ourselves.

This is why Jesus warns us that, at the Judgment seat of Christ, our love will be measured by how we responded to the poor God placed in our path. If we gave them food when they were hungry, or water when they were thirsty, or clothing when they were naked, or love when they were lonely, then it is counted as if we had done it unto our Lord Jesus Himself.

I've never given away my shoes to a homeless person. But, one day, I do hope that the Lord gives me an opportunity to put my shoes on His feet like this. Or perhaps, soon, I can buy him a cheeseburger, or something cool to drink the next time I see one of His representatives in the streets.

"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.' - (Matthew 25:37-40)

-kg

OUR IDEA OF KNOWING GOD VS GOD'S IDEA OF KNOWING HIM

Our idea of knowing God:

To study the Bible and to learn as much as we can about His character and His covenant and how it all fits together.

God’s idea of knowing Him:

"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the LORD." – (Jeremiah 22:16)

"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." – (John 5:39-40)