The evening meeting was fun. The guy who did the talk was from New Zealand, and he gave a very heartfelt talk about how we should, as Christians, love everyone. It was largely based upon his experience with a junkie who he had taken in, and how one goes about loving the unloveable.
A few things he mentioned really struck home. In talking about loving, he touched upon the servant nature that should inhabit Christendom. Everyone wants to be a somebody, he said, but Jesus would much rather use a tentful of nobodies. I'd quite like to be a nobody if it lets Jesus become somebody to others.
Just as he was closing, he mentioned the oft-quoted defence of those who don't want to anything about the last, the lost, the least: 'Jesus said: the poor will always be amongst you.' He pointed out that because of our comfortable, rich, Western churches, the poor are often not with us. In fact, to say they are always with us is a complete untruth.
I pray that we do something about changing the state of play. But there's no point praying it if I don't do anything. So, if you and I are in the street together, and we see a homeless person, remind me to help them out.
2 comments:
"A tent of nobodies" stuck in my mind as well.
And a difficult thing for individuals in the western church to work out, having begun to fall into the trappings of western society's desire to be famous, to be in the spotlight, to be seen 'doing their bit for God'.
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