Jesus Manifesto: “the least of…
Posted on November 03rd, 2009 in homelessness
Jesus Manifesto: “the least of these my brethren.” http://bit.ly/2XHOSK Wow. Contemplating… Thanks @knightopia
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November 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
I’m ready.
November 7th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
When do we start
November 7th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Check out this church: The Church Under the Bridge
November 7th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Michele,
Yes, as it turns out Jesus IS in many of those whom we serve. But whether this is try or not we are to serve and help and love them all the same.
One thing you have done so well is remind us all that these people whom we call the homeless, well, that there is more to them than that. Take away the heading “the homeless” and you find real human beings just like the rest of us, and with very much to give to us. This is one of the ways God uses you, to show us that the person in a tent on the out skirts of town is not just a person like us, but has insights and gifts like us, and indeed insights and perspective that we don’t have, locked inside our houses and our churches.
I share a dislike for the US and THEM mindset. I highlight it to critique it. We come up with a hundred reasons to keep THEM an arms length from US. You are helping us to see in revealing your own issues and highlighting the goodness of many of the people to whom you minister that WE are not that different from THEM nor THEM from US.
Jesus came to preach good news to the poor. He identified with the poor, as He himself had nowhere to lay his head. He had immense compassion for the poor. Indeed, the Torah itself also displayed immense compassion for the poor.
I believe that our churches and we as Christians ought to exhibit a preferential love for the poor and needy and naked and blind and sick. Jesus did. The Apostles did.
This may be a silly offer, and not that I think that a “rev” would be necessary, but if you ever want to have church “out there” (wherever that is), and you want some help, call me.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
“Yes, it is Christ you are serving when you serve them, not because ‘Jesus in them’…”
But Jesus is in many of the ones we serve, and we see Him quite clearly in them, as we did today in a homeless friend’s generosity, which is actually quite common.
“We want to be seen and known as the benefactor. We don’t really want to be thought of as the weak or poor or unwise of this world. It’s so very nice to help ‘those’ people, but we aren’t one of ‘those’ people.”
I wrote an article for the newspaper this past week, and one of the things I spoke about in the sidebar that ran with it is that I’ve been the greater benefactor in my relationships with my homeless friends. My own health problems make me “weak” and financially I am “poor”, and other than being with my immediate family, the place I feel most at home is with my homeless and poor friends. I feel that I am one of “those people.” I know that not everyone who serves the homeless feels that way, but for me, it seems to be a fairly even exchange — we love and serve and help one another. It’s been a great gift to me.
I guess for me, it’s hard to understand people who have an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality, but I certainly know it exists. But time and time again, I’ve seen that division begin to fade once you get ‘us’ and ‘them’ together. They discover the ‘we’, and that is as it should be. I am immensely grateful to serve with so many others who follow Jesus and who also see themselves as “one of those” and not as “benefactors”, for in fact, none of us are. We’re all stewards of what God has given us to pass along, just as our homeless and hungry friends pass along gifts to us.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Yes, it is Christ you are serving when you serve them, not because “Jesus in them” but because the only way to serve anyone rightly is if that service is also a service rendered unto Christ – street ministry, dishes, some crappy job, whatever….I am struck also by the insights of the section you cited.
“You too are called to be one of ‘these my brethren.’ To be ‘one of the least,’ in his kingdom where the least are the greatest. To become ‘the least of these’ yourself. The poor, the powerless, the outcast―who are like that because of him. Who Jesus identifies with because their life is just like his. But then you won´t be in charge anymore, you won´t be the benefactor….
We want to be seen and known as the benefactor. We don’t really want to be thought of as the weak or poor or unwise of this world. It’s so very nice to help “those” people, but we aren’t one of “those” people. Identifying with Jesus and his mission and embracing the ones that are left behind or left out of the “in crowd” of the churches is very hard. It is easier when we can be seen as “the benefactor.” It also strikes me that we really don’t want “those” people in our churches and communities. “They” are disruptive; “they” require too high maintenance; “they” will scare away the people we need to fund the building, whatever.
But there is also a danger in becoming known as one who “serves the poor.” One danger is that it underscores the idea of a divide between the one who serves and the poor whom one serves. Another is that it opens the door for the temptation to be seen as NOT ONE OF THEM. We don’t REALLY want to be thought of the way people tend to think of the poor and homeless and desperate. Oh no, we the BENEFACTORS who serve the poor and homeless and desperate -we’re certainly not one of THEM.
Well, pretty much we are – as Audrie quoted, “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”
I also think of Jesus words to the church of Laodicea, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”
November 6th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Joel, here’s what struck me about this post:
“You too are called to be one of ‘these my brethren.’ To be ‘one of the least,’ in his kingdom where the least are the greatest. To become ‘the least of these’ yourself. The poor, the powerless, the outcast―who are like that because of him. Who Jesus identifies with because their life is just like his. But then you won´t be in charge anymore, you won´t be the benefactor….”
Years ago, when I served in a church-based assistance program. I was the “case manager.” The homeless people were “the clients.” Later, when I left the office and went to the street to do ministry, it was very different. No titles, no labels. We were all just friends.
They shared their lives with me — their struggles, their dreams, their needs, their faith. And I shared mine with them. I gave them blankets and coats and hot meals and coffee. They gave me wisdom and courage and strength. I prayed for them. They prayed for me. They remembered what I’d asked them to pray for, they told me what they heard from the Lord about me.
We became “the least of these” to each other. That’s why I love street outreach. Jesus is there. He’s in them, He’s in me. He is with us.
Not everyone I meet on the street is a follower of Christ. But I serve them in the same way, because Colossians 3:23-24 tells me that is it Christ I’m serving. And I hope that these friends will see Jesus in me.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
This is very insightful, and the stranger in the story is right. We are not called to “see Jesus in people.” At a fundamental level it may be the other way around. In our service we are to represent Jesus to people or as Paul says be an aroma of Christ to them – a sweet aroma or stench – depending…I don’t think “the least of these” are the least of Jesus’s brethren simply because as human beings they are poor and needy. It’s more that because they are His brethren they are poor and needy, OR, perhaps also – that of those who are His brethren He extends special care to the most needy. Some call these “God’s poor.” It’s kind of like the “tension” in Matthew and Luke between “the poor” and “the poor in spirit.” It’s not by mere poverty that one possesses the kingdom, but neither is this blessing extended to the “spiritually poor” simply. The multitudes on the mountain following and listening to Jesus had become poor and hungry and powerless in following Him. Some refer to these as “God’s poor.” There is a tension…real lack can make one look elsewhere for life and meaning…or it can make one bitter and envious. The Torah and the NT writings make it very clear that we are to care for the needy and the poor and strangers and aliens, not because we see Jesus in them, or because they are Jesus’ brethren (because they very well may not be) but because they are human beings made in God’s image who are needy. To mistreat the needy neighbor is to dishonor the One in whose image they are made. So, yes, we should see our fellow human beings as made in God’s image, and we must treat our neighbors’ with honor and humility due to this fundamental sanctity of life. Over history there has always been a tendency to ignore or reject the poor, but this displeases God greatly who, I believe, has a special place in His heart for the weak and needy and elderly and stranger and dispossessed of His creatures as well as of His children. We reach out in His name to these made in His image because love demands that we do so, and ultimately if we fail to love the poor we fail to love the One in whose image they are made. But being made in God’s image and being “the least of these my brethren” are not the same. In Matthew 25 Jesus I think is talking about how people treat His, that is Jesus’ followers, who are poor and dispossessed because they are His followers, that is, who are “God’s poor.”