It’s so natural to be caught up in ourselves at the expense of others that we barely realize it. It’s normal, and feels healthy. But if that were normal for Jesus, would anyone be saved? Would the bleeding woman who reached out for the edge of his robe ever have been noticed? Would the 12-year-old girl he raised to life soon after that have died? Probably, if Jesus were you or I…
If Jesus were like me, where would I be?
We have legitimate reasons to be preoccupied. We have goals to reach, friends to keep, deadlines to meet. But didn’t Jesus have plenty of good reasons to pass us by too? His greatest reason could have been the cross. Will people ever cost us that much? Yet we are busier than God.
‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.’ (Ezekiel 16:49)
When I think poor and needy I tend to think of the homeless people I pass on the streets of San Francisco, or the hungry children I see on TV. But is that the only place to find the poor and needy, or have I really had eyes to see? How often do I consider myself poor and needy and wish someone were there for me?
The poor and needy are everybody, whether physically or spiritually, whether we know it or not. There is only one who is not, and he is God. And he fills us up so we can be poured out, and he pours us out so we can be filled up. Half the blessing is to be filled, but to be poured out is to be fulfilled.
Our ministry is not at all confined to our role in church. We can be a stranger, a classmate, a co-worker, a friend, and we have a ministry. I like to think of ministry as administering care to a soul, like a nurse administers medicine to a body.
We all have good excuses to avoid the poor and needy, but we have much better reasons to care. To go in to church and then go out as the church. To pray for eyes to see, to have a heart that feels, to reach with hands that heal. To be the flesh and blood of Jesus, the same way he has been for us.
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