At some point in our history, Christianity became about us versus them. We know what’s right and they are going to hell unless they repent. We say the magic words (Jesus is Lord) and all is forgiven – they don’t (no matter how kind and good they are) and they go to hell. This binary approach to faith continues to destroy civilization; we see it in the laws being passed all over the world and in the violence being perpetrated against people who don’t fit into some people’s narrow definitions of goodness. And even though we talk a lot about grace, there is little of it in most religions. We still like our restrictive rules and doctrine; we still like to know where we stand. We still think it’s us versus them.
For Jesus, though, it was a different scenario. My favorite Bible passage is Matthew 25: 31-46, which tells us a story about the sheep going to heaven because they helped the least among them, and the goats going to hell because they didn’t (yes, Cake has a great song about this). Both groups stand before the King and call Him Lord; this is us and us. Jesus understood just how quickly we would begin to twist things around; I think His experience as one of us gave Him amazing insight into just how good and bad we are. The primary task of a follower of Jesus (after loving God, self, and others) is to care for people in need. How? By thinking that any one of them could be Jesus. There’s motivation for you! And because I believe that most Scripture is a response to what is happening at the time, this lack of caring for the least among us must have been rampant in the 1st Century. The question both groups ask – “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” – continues to haunt us every day as we see the same social problems plaguing our society. And the entire world, for that matter.
It isn’t that Jesus didn’t think people shouldn’t work for a living; He grew up in a household where His mother worked hard raising children and His stepdad was a carpenter and day laborer. Questions around working and welfare were not at issue in this story. Jesus was pointing at the basic necessities of life, and if someone is in need, you share what you have. If you have an extra coat, give it to someone who has no coat. Got a spare tunic hanging around? Cover up someone who is naked and probably just had theirs stolen. Stop making poverty a political problem and address the moral needs around it! Stop funding schools based on zip codes and educate all children! Take care of people as if they were Jesus – or your mother – or Dolly Parton (everyone loves Dolly, after all). Jesus told His followers that if they had – or hadn’t – done it for the least among them, they had – or hadn’t – done it for Him. It isn’t complicated. It isn’t socialism or communism or the decline of human civilization. It’s about us being for us and them, not us versus them. Simple.
Prayer – God of rich and poor and everyone in between, cure our selfishness and teach us to care and share. Amen.
Today’s is Zhao Mengfu, Sheep and goat, ink on paper. Yuan dynasty (c. 1300). Freer Gallery of Art.