Luke 14 - Randy T

Verses 13-14: "But when you give a banquet. invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will  be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

This is something I struggle with.  In our culture, (I'm sure the same was true 2000 years ago) we want to keep people in "their proper place". We love the homeless, as long as they are contained to the homeless shelter.  Sometimes we feel really righteous and even work at the homeless shelter on Thanksgiving,.  But how may of us would invite the homeless to our banquet, to our Thanksgiving meal in our own home? 

I know I will cross to the other side of the street to avoid the "outcasts and undesirables" of our society.

We want to be kind, generous, and charitable- but only in an isolated, sterile, detached way. We don't want to "know" these people, we just want to be able to say we helped them.

Isn't it sad, I doubt many, if any, of these folks have ever felt welcomed in or to a church.

This is a tough topic, we can be of little value to people, if we don't "jump in" and take the time to know them.

I can relate to this issue on a personal level, when my oldest son was 15 years old, he had some real behavioral issues,  He had been kicked out of a couple of schools, I remember talking with a minister at a church based school. The minister was apologetic, but his point was clear, the reason "good" people sent their kids to that Christian school, was to keep their children away from children like mine.  I made some wise crack about WWJD, he just sighed and said he understood. Don't get me wrong, I completely understood his point, and I didn't disagree- but I did ask (and still do) where is the church for the people who don't fit our filter.

There are a lot of hurting people in this world, not all are homeless, poor, in prisons, etc.  many are sitting right beside us at work, church, school, etc.  But they know if they were to make their needs known, that they would only be ostracized, often by the church.

This subject weighs heavily on my heart, as it should.