The single most unusual thing about the early Church wasn’t their belief in Jesus – as startling and even scandalous as that was for even the most religious people of the day. What blew outsiders’ minds was the way Christians took care of the poor – and not just chipping in a little spare change. They pooled all their possessions to insure that neither private property nor any shred of possessiveness would prevent them from doing what someone who’d lost everything required to keep going, and even be treated with full dignity.
Who’s lost? The lonely? The unattractive (to the world, never to God) person? The mentally ill? The chronically ill? Those wounded by the church? The kid being raised in a disadvantaged zip code? The homeless, hurricane victims, the sensitive soul disturbed by the troubles of the world? All of us? Jesus’ best little cluster of stories (in Luke 15) portray all that we’re about, or supposed to be about as a Church. It’s not membership or privileges. Jesus’ shepherd left the 99 sheep who did the right thing to search for the 1 who’d nibbled himself lost. Jesus’ envisions the no-good son who’s squandered half his father’s life savings in wicked living coming home ready to grovel, but the father embraces him and throws a party.
We exist for the lost, those we don’t know yet, who don’t belong, those the world blames. They are part of us even though we’ve not found them just yet. We who think we’re found are lost until we find and include the lost.
For Jesus, it’s never the haves doing for the have-nots. It’s never dropping off an old coat I don’t care to keep any longer. It’s giving something I like, something I want, something that’s mine, and that I surely deserve. It’s not all about giving stuff. It’s giving time, and my self. Being with the lost, the challenged, the hurting.
Jesus’ dream is in his most disobeyed passage, Luke 14: “When you give a dinner party, do not invite those who can invite you in return, but invite the poor, the maimed, the lame who cannot invite you in return.” It’s about befriending, sharing life together, even treating the one you’re not kin to and are tempted to blame for his woes as if he were family. Because of Jesus, he actually is your family.
Of course, we’re busy, and Jesus’ way is hard. I wonder if Jesus thought Let’s collect money to help the haves not feel so badly for failing to befriend those in need. It’s a blockbuster deal: we who have so much, so much more than we need, the burden of excess funds, can through God’s church simultaneously unburden ourselves and heighten our spirituality by giving lavishly to the Church which then embodies the love of all the givers to those in need. And who gets the joy? All of us! That’s why Jesus always reports there was a party – after that 1 sheep was found, after than wayward son came home.
In the Church, we serve. You have to do without something to get busy serving. You play less tennis, or watch less TV, or spend less on yourself. It’s fun. It’s what you were made for. It’s what you’ll be proud of late in your life. And as Jimmy Carter said, serving is like eating peanuts. You eat one, or a few, and you just want more.
Churches serve their neighbors, their neighborhoods, their cities, their world. Not optional. Not squeezed in once we’ve done what we want for ourselves. How will the world know God is love? Only by the joyful, compassionate, constant actions of the people of God. The only way to counter cynicism about God and God’s church, and the only way to bring hope of healing to our fractured, divisive culture is for us to go out and love tangibly, radically, regularly.
Where are you in this? Are you at least as generous a donor as you possibly can be? What do you do with your time? Is serving a priority among you and your friends? Within your family? Bring it up, talk it up. Lead. Motivate. Press your church to do more, and be part of that more. If you do any serving or giving? On behalf of the world, and of God, let me say Thank you. And then, together, let’s ratchet this thing up together. I bet it’s a rare thing for God to look at one of us or a whole church and say to us, Whoa, slow down, you’re doing too much for me and those in need! Just chill! God always wants more – for you, for the church and for the world.