Wednesday, January 2, 2002
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Wednesday, January 2, 2002 |
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'Human need' should be the church's top priority By REV JOHN HATCHER My traveling companions and I were walking out of St. Patrick's' Cathedral in New York City and passing through the narthex, an older man had his hat extended asking for alms. It was four years ago. As we returned to the wintry cold streets of New York in preparation for our trans-Atlantic flight bound for Israel, the thought hit me: that man could have been Jesus. We stopped dead still on East 51st Street, took up a collection among the three of us. I took our collection back into the narthex, gave it to the man, and said, "God bless you." Indeed, it was the thing to do. We were no fools. The next day we were boarding a flight that would take us to one of the world's most troubled spots and if anything happened, we did not want Jesus saying to us, "I was hungry and you fed me not." You can read for yourselves the seriousness with which our Lord Jesus Christ takes this matter of helping the poor, the widows, and the orphans. Jesus clearly indicated that one of the criteria working on the Day of Judgment would be how we treated the poor. Why else would he have said, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in; naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me"(Matthew 25:35,36). According to Matthew's account, the righteous folks were puzzled with Jesus' surveillance of their lives and inquired when such things happened. Jesus replied, "...to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). Now you know what prompted the street side offering for the poor. Anytime anyone asks me to make a visit to a prisoner, I make it. Why, it could be Jesus I am visiting. The book of Proverbs tells us that the person who gives to the poor actually lends to the Lord (Proverbs 19:17). Imagine that: would you like the Lord to be in your debt? Give to the poor. For, if you lend to the Lord, he will repay in multiplied fashion. Then, we look at the evaluation of James, one of the leaders of the first Christian church based in Jerusalem. He said, "This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father, to visit the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep one unstained by the world"(James 1:27). James insists the social philanthropy must be administered through personal purity. The one word that describes what Jesus, the Proverbs, and James talked about is "powerless." God wants his church to give special attention to the "powerless" people, regardless of the road that brought them to their desperate situation. For instance, yes the church should help someone who has lost it all because of drugs and alcohol. And yes, the church should help someone who has adopted a lifestyle inconsistent with church teachings. The church should look at only one criterion in helping people: is there a human need. Last week, I opened one of our offices so a woman could use the telephone to call relatives and prospective employers. Her telephone service had been cut off. Our food ministry serves people a week's worth of groceries every Thursday night. We have tended to forget that charity should be the heart of religion, not discipleship and not church growth. Oh, that hurts! Been there, bought that t-shirt. The New Year calls on us in the church community to return to our calling and that's not manufacturing religious snobs, but ministering to the powerless poor.
The Rev. Dr. John Hatcher is pastor of River's Edge Community Church in Fayetteville. |
