HOME SICK

“Home. Hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one. Home. I don’t know where it is but I know I’m going home. It’s where the heart is.” – U2, “Walk On”.

As I’ve been thinking about ‘Home’ lately and how good it feels to finally return after a long trip with my family, I realized something. What if you never returned home? What if you didn’t even have a home to return to?

On my way to work every day I pass people carrying everything they own in a garbage bag, or on a pack on their back. Most of them are being released from the Salvation Army shelter that’s two blocks away. They stand outside the Jack in the Box sipping hot coffee, or wander the sidewalks with nowhere to go.

When I think about the longing I have to return home after a few days of vacation, I wonder how I’d feel if I had to hold on to that same longing every moment of my life, with no hope of release.

Jesus understood this longing, and this emptiness. He understands what it feels like to have no place you can call “Home”.

“And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58)

In fact, Jesus identified so much with this feeling, and with these people, that he decided to measure our love for Him based on how much we love those who are without a home.

“‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matt.25:40)

There is no place like home, they say. Everyone deserves to have a place where they can rest and relax and be themselves. Everyone deserves the privacy and the dignity and the intimacy that can only be found at home. Jesus understands that better than anyone. He wants us to extend the grace and mercy we’ve received from Him with everyone we meet. Our homes should be open to the stranger, the outcast, and the broken. Our hearts should be open to those who long for the comfort of home but have no place to lay their head.

Please God, give us a heart like yours. Help us to love the way that you love and to give the way that you give so that the love of Jesus can flow out of us and into this broken world.

Amen.

-kg

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