I recently had a discussion with a friend which reminded me of how naive I am. This friend is highly intelligent and is well-versed in politics, economics, and religion. I figure they're one of the most intelligent people I've met.
I told the person my dream - my top-of-the-bucket-list thing. I want to spend whatever useful life I have left helping the homeless and others in hurt. The response was ..... flabbergasting. They said that I would have to leave this country to do that; go somewhere like the Philippines or S America .........
I was so taken back and thrown off that it took me a while to recover while trying to hide my flabbergosity. I ... I really didn't know how to respond. It was like ... I was processing this comment - the person that said it, the content, the tone, the environment.. - trying to figure where I went wrong, what i missed, where on Earth could they be coming from, etc.
I let it pass. On the way home this thing kept hitting me. Am I really that daft? Have I absolutely missed the boat? Did I draw a short deck or a manipulated deck of cards? Am I that stupid? But most of all, are you really trying to tell me that there's no significant homeless (let's leave the other categories out for now) population in these United States of America? Really?! Really??!
wow ...
God has given me a desire to help those people, and that from long ago. I wanted to go to Africa with my Pastor, I wanted to be in Haiti, I looked into Nicaragua (poorest country in Central Am.). I realize I'm not in any of those countries; I'm here. But I have given myself to finding the church that Jesus built, and in the process have aligned myself with a community of Jesus-people who are very much concerned with the homeless, especially in the county I live, where there's no homeless shelter, and where they have only in the last 4 or so years made any significant effort to enumerate/estimate the number of homeless (presumably because they, like my good friend, are in denial). Recent figures reveal about 800+.
And I'm doing this why? Even if I diss' the rest of the country, there are 800+ people right here that need assistance, including children .... what am I missing???
It may well be obvious from the 'tone' of this piece that I am kerfuffled. I am. I damned well am. I refute that. I diss' that. I dispute that. I reprove that. ... I resent that.
Jesus' heart was a heart for the hurting. It is repeatedly remarked-on in the Gospels of Jesus Messiah, all 4 versions of them, that he spent his ministry going about doing good. Period. He healed, and chased off the demons, fed and comforted and chatted and dined-with the ordinary, and even raised up the dead! His mind and heart were for the 'sinner' (not the 'righteous), the wayward, the hurting, those that mourn, and the meek and humble, and peacepushers, and the poor in spirit (emotionally hurting), and ... Those are the people he was concerned with; that was their defining characteristic, not their name, or family, or career, or ...
So I'm offended. Not by my friend; that's my friend. I am offended that we, the church that belongs to Creator/Messiah/Redeemer Jesus, have so failed to make us all aware of the dreadness of being a hurter, and absolutely pushed us in the direction of healing that. I'm offended at that precisely because it was his passion. And too, it is well worth mentioning that the social media has been quite quiet about it. Where are the 'news' agencies that report? Whence the 'investigative reports' and 'documentaries'?
I have given my life in all its paucity to that Jesus, and I am trying to be molded after his example and after any exemplars that reflect him.
I want to be helping hurting people; I cannot put it any simpler or clearer. So when you diss that, you diss me.
I want to put a face on the hurting, and this event slammed that home on the order of a Lebron James slam.
I will persevere in finding them and helping them in any way I can ...
God helping me.
shalom
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