Luke 14:12-14
12Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,14and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
As I have mentioned before, I am reading through the book Seven by Jen Hatmaker with a small group of women. The book has challenged all of us on our lifestyles, the amount of stuff we own, and our consumerist attitudes. However, this week, I have been wrestling with one issue that comes up over and over in her writings.
Her relationship with the marginalized.
It is a natural part of her life. She calls the homeless,the down and out, and the marginalized her friends. They are not her ministry. She breaks bread and spends Easter morning with them. And it bothers me. It bothers me because I feel like so often in my circle, we talk about serving the poor or our ministry to the poor. We don’t talk about them like they are our friends, we talk about them like they are a charity case. When we plan events, they are either for us or for the poor. I am not implying we should not serve the poor, but I think we have created a system in which we can live our normal, American lives and just sprinkle in good deeds to the poor here and there. We can rally our small group together to provide household goods for a family. We can serve a meal. We can clean out our closets. But how often do we invite those people into our lives? How often do we take them to coffee? How often do we know their hopes and dreams?
I am guilty of this. I can honestly say, I don’t really have people around me that are marginalized. Sure, I serve a lot. I volunteer a lot. But at the end of the day, my circle of friends does not include any of the people I serve. It only includes the people I serve alongside. And this week, the crushing reality of that has broke my heart. I can clean out my closet. I can get rid of my excess. But it will only be a matter of time before the closet fills back up.
Until our lives truly collide with the poor, the needy, and the broken, I am not sure permanent change is possible. Given the onslaught of advertising and the need to impress, we will always fight a battle of excess. But what if the single mom becomes our friend? What if we have dinner with her and spend time with her? What if we see that she wears the same pair of pants everyday because she only has one pair? What if we find out the hopes and dreams of the child who will go hungry tonight? At that point, I think we will look at our closets and realize they hold rubbish that will burned in a holy fire. Our lives will start to become less about what we own and more about who we spend our time around.
I am still figuring this out. I don’t know how to collide my life with the people I serve other than planting myself there, being vulnerable, and asking someone to coffee. And I have no idea what will happen. Will they view me as an outsider? Will they ever call me their friend? I just know that I am tired of cleaning out my closet and passing along my excess to a nameless person who may pick it up out of a clothing bank or off the Goodwill rack. That is easy. That is comfortable. And that is not what I feel God has called me to do with my life.
