A Living Gospel

 “Go and do the same.” Luke 10:37

In this chapter, we meet a young Russian boy named Kirill and, as he asks some strangers for a place to stay and food, we are challenged to see him as Jesus. What??? Don’t you mean the ones helping him are like Jesus? After all, in verses like Colossians 3:10, we are called to be like Christ; to “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” But this chapter deals with something deeper, something I have so many times, too many times, justified my way out of, and that is (in the glaring red letters of Christ’s own words), ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ You mean I don’t get to decide who’s worthy enough for my charity? Who will use the gift wisely? or Which ‘bum’ won’t drink my money away?

What we discovered in our discussion this week is that Jesus frequently associated with ‘the least of these,’ and that God’s grace and love reach beyond our human boundaries of the sin-of-the-day. I was reminded by my fellow study partners that whoever is ‘generous to the poor lends to the Lord,’ and that it is much more about our heart’s attitude toward God than the worthiness of the recipient. That discussion led us in to the full text about the final judgement in Matthew 25:31-46. This passage seems pretty clear that we can call ourselves Christ’s followers and still miss the whole point. What if we miss the boat altogether? Yikes!

Wow!?! Where have I been living? Seriously, how many times have I turned a blind eye to pain and suffering and missed Jesus there? One of the most convicting points we touched on was found in that same chapter of Matthew 25, verses 35-36, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Okay, so hungry and thirsty I can cover, strangers and those in need - maybe a stretch but still doable, but those sick and imprisoned? Really? Like those sick with yucky stuff like HIV/AIDS? And what if they did something that caused their yucky illnesses? And what if it’s contagious? Prisoners who have committed God-knows-what crimes? Can I just visit the ‘nice’ ones? And then came the truth: Jesus didn’t ask those questions. He forgave the criminal on the cross without an interrogation. (Luke 23:42-43).  In the words of my favorite band, Caedmon’s Call, “the least of these look like criminals to me, so I leave Christ on the street.” And so our discussion ended how the chapter began: with an admonition from the story of the good Samaritan, “Go and do the same.” Luke 10:37

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