Our spirituality and what we wear

Clothes make the man, said Mark Twain. But what does the Bible say? Here is a sample of passages about the clothes we wear:

A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 22:5, NKJV; cf. 1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together. (Deuteronomy 22:5, NKJV; cf. Leviticus 19:19)

… in like manner also, that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, which is proper for women professing godliness, with good works. (1 Timothy 2:9-10, NKJV; cf. 1 Peter 3:3)

Concerning the prohibition of cross-dressing, I believe God wants us to uphold the distinction between male and female according to creation order, but how we apply this across different cultures and ever-changing fashion trends can sometimes be quite tricky. And nobody knows for sure why a garment should not be made of different materials, though some suggest that this was to remind the Israelites that they were to be a pure people. Anyway, I think most Christians today don’t really follow all these guidelines.

Now, how about the part about “modest apparel” versus “costly clothing”? Here is a quote of Theonas of Alexandria, an early church father, in his instructions to Christian servants of Caesar in about A.D. 300:

All of you should be elegant and tidy in person and dress. At the same time, your dress should not in any way attract attention because of extravagance or artificiality. Otherwise, Christian modesty may be scandalized. (Quoted in David W. Bercot, ‘A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs’ [Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1998], p. 324.)

According to Ajith Fernando, there is a relationship between how we dress and how welcoming our church is towards the poor:

Many of our relationships are selfish. Proverbs speaks often about selfish relationships. Proverbs 14:20 says, “The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.” Proverbs 19:4 says something very similar: “Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man’s friend deserts him.” Both verses condemn the insincerity of people who befriend the rich because of what they can get from them and neglect the poor because they are of no use to them (or so they think).

This type of behavior is not alien to us today. Just look at the way a church usher welcomes a rich and influential person at the entrance to a church. Then compare the treatment the usher gives a badly dressed and desperately poor person. That may reveal to us how utilitarian we are in our approach to people. Actually, rarely do such poor people enter our churches. They feel so uncomfortable and unwelcome in an average church that they don’t like to come in to the churches. (This gives us a strong reason to dress simply when we go to church.)

(Ajith Fernando, ‘Reclaiming Friendship’ [Pennsylvania & Ontario: Herald Press, 1993], pp. 69-70.)

Roy McCloughry puts it in another way:

… people dress up for church, seeing it as a social occasion. But this practice makes those who cannot afford such finery, uncomfortable. Worse, it may deter Christians from bringing friends to hear the gospel, since they would be embarrassed by such a display.

Even the cars in which we draw up to church, and the projects on which the church spends its money, can be barriers to the effectiveness of the church in representing the kingdom of God. If people cannot see us struggling to maintain a very different and distinctive life in our churches, how will they know that the kingdom of God is more than a myth?

(Roy McCloughry, ‘The Eye of the Needle’ [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1990], p. 121.)

What Ajith and Roy say is really nothing new. The Bible talks about this when condemning the church’s attitude of marginalising the poor (and the poorly dressed):

My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. (James 2:1-9, NKJV)

But how about the long-held tradition of putting on our “Sunday Best”? In James Rutz’s book ‘The Open Church’, Gene Edwards contributes some information about the origin of this unquestioned practice of dressing up for church:

Why did Christians start dressing up to go to church?

… you’re probably under the impression that dressing up for church is a godly custom designed to show our respect for the Lord. It’s not. While showing respect for God is always good, that’s just not the historical reason for shined shoes, fresh shirts, and attention to style.

Nor do we dress to impress each other – although many people do find it uplifting to be among well-turned-out friends.

History is a little fuzzy on this, but as near as anyone can tell, the real reason for our Sunday splendor is so that we’ll look good if we happen to run into Emperor Constantine or his aristocratic friends!

… Constantine and other heavy hitters had a habit of popping up in several of the church buildings he paid for. And when big cathedrals sprang up much later, with European royalty in attendance, the impetus to dress up grew further. Fancy church buildings were the one place that royalty mixed with commoners. Cathedrals, such as those at St. Denis, attracted royalty from all over, and it simply wouldn’t do to bump into a prince or contessa in your grubby work clothes.

(James H. Rutz, ‘The Open Church’ [GA: The SeedSowers, 1993], pp. 66-67.)

To be an inclusive church that glorifies God, we have to be aware of how our own clothing and our attitude toward other’s clothing can either welcome or alienate the poor.

Jesus' invitation list

Tim Chester was previously Research and Policy Director for Tearfund UK, a Christian relief and development organisation that is definitely worth supporting. When he was working at Tearfund, he wrote a book ‘Awakening to a World of Need: The Recovery of Evangelical Social Action’ which tells the story of the growth of evangelical social concern from the 1960s to the 1990s. He is now involved in The Crowded House, a church-planting (house churches) initiative in Sheffield, England. Here is an excerpt from one of his books that has challenged my thinking about the church’s responsibility toward the poor:

Notice the language that James uses to describe the poor: ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…’ (Jas. 1:27). James is not only interested in widows and orphans; he is concerned about other needy people as well. James is using widows and orphans to describe all those who are vulnerable because of their marginalized status. In doing so James is picking up the language of the Old Testament. Widows, orphans and aliens (immigrants) are often used in the Old Testament to describe all those in poverty. God himself ‘watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow’ (Ps. 146:9). Joel Green explains how in Jesus’ time ‘poor’ was a term for ‘those of low status, for those excluded from the normal canons of status honour’. This low status might arise because of economic disadvantage, but status was also defined by ‘education, gender, family heritage, religious purity, vocation, economics and so on’. (Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke, NICNT [Eerdmans, 1997], p.211.) The poor are those of low status – the excluded.

… Poverty is about the lack of income and resources – both an absolute lack and a relative lack. But these things are symptoms of underlying issues. At root, poverty is about broken relationships: relationships with God, within and between communities and with the environment. Poverty is social as well as economic. God made us as stewards of creation to contribute to community life, but the poor become non-contributors. They are forced to be passive. The result is a loss of dignity, confidence and hope that in turn become significant factors keeping them in poverty. So poverty is about marginalization, vulnerability, isolation and exclusion. And so the Bible refers to the widow and orphan to represent those who are vulnerable because of their marginalized status.

… Recognizing that poverty is about marginalization and exclusion presents a clear opportunity for the church. At a poverty hearing organized by Church Action on Poverty, Mrs. Jones, a mother who has lived in poverty all her life, described the experience of poverty like this: ‘In part it is about having no money, but there is more to poverty than that. It is about being isolated, unsupported, uneducated and unwanted. Poor people want to be included and not just judged and “rescued” at times of crisis.’ (Cited in Paul Vallely, ‘Mrs. Jones has Something to Say,’ The Independent [7 August 1996].) So the first responsibility of the church in terms of social involvement is to be a community of love and inclusion – to be the church. We are to offer welcome and belonging to people, especially people who are marginalized by society.

Jesus made a point of including the marginalized and sinners. The religious people of his day despised him for it. In Luke 7 Jesus says the religious leaders are like children who cannot be pleased. They complained that John the Baptist fasted too much. Now they complain that Jesus feasts too much. ‘The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners’!”’ (Luke 7:34). The Son of Man is a reference to the one who comes in glory to rule all things (see Dan. 7:13-14). But ‘the Son of Man has come eating and drinking’. It echoes Isaiah 25:6-8 and 55:1-2 in which Isaiah describes God’s promised future as a great feast of provision and enjoyment, acceptance and friendship. The religious leaders have no problem with this. They do not take exception to the coming of God’s messianic feast – that was what they longed for. What they object to is the invitation list. Jesus feasts with the wrong sort of people. In Jesus’ day eating with someone was a sign of acceptance and inclusion. This is why Jesus got into such trouble when he partied with the socially marginalized of his day. By eating with ‘sinners’, Jesus modelled the radical grace of God. In response to the accusation that Jesus is ‘a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of the worst sort of sinners’, Luke tells a story that shows that the accusation is true (7:36-50)! He shows that Jesus does feast and drink and that he is a friend of the worst sort of sinners.

It is striking that in the New Testament there is no talk of social projects, nor for that matter is there much on evangelistic methods. Instead the New Testament talks about the church being the church: a caring, gracious and inclusive community with a message to proclaim. We are to include the poor in the network of believing relationships. In this way we offer them dignity, belonging and inclusion. They are no longer isolated, but people with connections and people with a contribution to make. I remember a woman with an alcoholic husband and two disruptive children. What she liked about coming to our church was that we did not ‘tut tut’ when her children played up. We welcomed her and her children along with the disruption they brought. It was decisive in her Christian experience. Many people suggest that the main factors behind the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism among the poor of the world is that their approach to spiritual gifts and ministry means everyone’s contribution is valued irrespective of education, status and wealth. In other denominations the clergy perform the religious activities. In Pentecostalism anyone can speak the word of God to the congregation. They offer a sense of family and the support of family to people displaced and disoriented by a move to the city or by the complexity of modern life.

The church has often had a presence in a local community for years. That means that it is both well placed to work with the poor, and also that its work is likely to be sustainable in the long-term. As Gladys Wathanga, a Tearfund worker, says, ‘I know that when I go back to Kenya my church will still be there, but I don’t know whether my development organization will be. They are in today and could be out tomorrow, but the local church is there for years.’ (Cited in Tulo Raistrick and Tim Chester, ‘The Church and its Role in Development’ [unpublished paper, 1999].) Sustainable Christian development requires sustainable Christian communities. In other words, while it is possible to have sustainable development without local churches, you cannot have sustainable Christian development – development that is distinctly Christian – without sustainable Christian communities. This means that Christian development must be accompanied by church planting where no churches exist.

… We are not simply talking about inviting the poor to come to church on Sunday mornings. Often there is a significant gap between the church and outsiders, and between the culture of the church and the culture of the marginalized. I have friends who began working with a local church in a poor area of Mexico City. The members of the church were more affluent and came from outside the area in which the church building was located. The church wanted to reach people from the local area and initially welcomed the help they received. The couple began to reach prostitutes and drug addicts, befriending them, ministering to their needs and sharing the gospel with them. Much of the work was funded with their own money. They started to see some of the prostitutes and drug addicts coming to the meetings of the church. The couple were excited about the ways things were developing and the opportunities that were opening up to reach marginalized people. But one Sunday morning they turned up to find the building locked. The members of the church felt they did not want prostitutes and drug addicts corrupting their children. They had decided to move elsewhere without telling the couple. The ministry collapsed overnight. The culture gap between the church and the marginalized had proved too big for the church members.

… If we are going to offer a place of inclusion to the poor then we have to make the Christian community a community of welcome and belonging… We need to take the gospel and the church out of our ghetto and into the world around us. The inclusion of the Christian community does not have to take place in a church building. It is about relationships, not about institutions. A house group may be a place to begin.

A minister in Scotland was once standing outside his church when a drunk walked past. ‘Why don’t you come in?’ he asked. ‘I will,’ said the drunk, ‘when I get my life sorted out’. The minister was quick-witted enough to question whether this was likely. But he was left with a more fundamental question: ‘Whoever gave him the impression that church was for people who had got their lives sorted out?’ To be a place of welcome for the marginalized, we have to be honest about our own brokenness. And even more importantly, we need to be communities of grace. My life may be more sorted out than someone else’s, but that is not a testament to my effort or initiative. It is a testament to God’s grace – perhaps over years and even over generations. It is only by celebrating grace, proclaiming grace and living by grace that we will attract marginalized sinners as Jesus did (Luke 15:1-2).

(Tim Chester, ‘Good News to the Poor’ [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2004], pp. 123-35.)

The church comes home for people with disabilities

House churches are making a comeback, according to a report in The Barna Update (also reported in TIME and The Washington Post). And in my opionion, that is good news for the church. Why do I say so? For the following reasons:

1. It’s the New Testament pattern for the church to meet in believers’ homes (Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 2). Although Jewish Christians in Jerusalem continued to meet in places like the temple and Solomon’s porch as part of their Jewish roots until the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70, they followed the distinctive New Testament practice of meeting in homes (Acts 2:46; 5:42). Moreover, history has also shown that for the first three hundred years of its existence, the church met primarily in the homes of its members, not in some buildings built specifically for church meetings.

2. The house church provides the right setting for members to participate and contribute to community life as expressed in the New Testament (refer to all the “one another” and “each other” verses in the epistles). It's difficult to imagine how it is possible to fulfil the priesthood of all believers in what usually takes place on a Sunday in most congregations today.

3. A house church can release financial resources for God’s work more effectively than a church that meets in a church building. In the New Testament, Christians are instructed to give financially to three main areas: helping the poor (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-37; 11:29; Romans 15:26-27; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2; 2 Corinthians 8:1-9:15; Galatians 2:10; 1 Timothy 5:3-16; James 2:14-17; 1 John 3:16-18), supporting church planters in their work (1 Corinthians 9:3-14; 3 John 5-8), and giving honorarium to local church elders (Galatians 6:6; 1 Timothy 5:17-18). Unfortunately, a large amount of the money contributed by church members today is tied up in church building funds, lease or rent payments, interest payments for bank loans, building maintenance costs and utility bills.

4. The house church provides a more welcoming environment for people with disabilities to integrate into the local church community. Here's what Robert Banks writes in a book which he co-authored with his wife Julia Banks, deceased (they were involved with home churches for over twenty-five years):

In the church all worldly distinctions of gender, class, and race are overcome (Gal 3:28). This includes distinctions based on differing abilities. We all meet as equals in the sight of God, each with a special need and a special gift to share. As Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities for the handicapped so eloquently reminds us, all of us are “handicapped” in some way.

For a variety of reasons home churches tend to attract a disproportionate number of “challenged” people. Perhaps these churches have a flexibility that makes it easier for such people to fit in without drawing attention to themselves. For example, someone who suffers from a chronic bad back finds it more acceptable to lie on the floor in a living room than in the aisle of a church sanctuary! A deaf person can lip-read more easily when facing the speaker. The needs of someone who is blind or someone who has a learning disability can be more easily accommodated in a home church than in a large congregation.

The group that welcomes differently abled persons into its midst must remain sensitive to their needs. As Jean Vanier points out (Community and Growth [New York: Paulist, 1979], pp. 204-5.),

When a community welcomes people who have been on the margins of society, things usually go quite well to begin with. Then, for many reasons, these people start to become marginal to the society of the community as well. They throw crises which can be very painful for the community and cause it considerable confusion, because it feels so powerless. The community is then caught in a trap from which it is hard to escape. But if the crises bring it to a sense of its own poverty, they can also be a grace.

There is something prophetic in people who seem marginal and difficult; they force the community to become alert, because what they are demanding is authenticity. Too many communities are founded on dreams and fine words: there is so much talk about love, truth and peace. Marginal people are demanding. Their cries are cries of truth because they sense the emptiness of many of our words… But sometimes marginal people can become a focus for unity, because they… can force the community to pull itself together.

That would be the testimony of one home church that we know of. For the past twenty years they have had as a member a woman who could be described as a person with limited intelligence. Alice became acquainted with one of the women in the group through a community endeavor to help those who were unable to read or write. In time Alice became a part of the woman’s extended family, sharing weekly meals, babysitting, participating in special events and occasional holidays. Eventually she was drawn into the life of the home church to which the woman’s family belonged.

Alice has been a precious gift to that church. Her warm heart and willingness to admit that she doesn’t understand everything has endeared her to the adult members, and she is much loved by the children, who appreciate her simplicity and childlike demeanor. But that is not to say that Alice has always been easy to live with. She can be very demanding at times, obstinate and fearful because she doesn’t always understand what is happening around her.

While the Hughes family has been her major support, others in the church have included her in dinner parties, outings, and holidays. Some have shared the responsibility of getting her to and from doctor’s appointments. In many ways she has been a group “project,” although that is certainly not the way the home church would talk about her. As Alice describes her experience as a member of the home church, “When I made contact with the group I didn’t know nothing. I was dubious about going to a house church – but when I went they gave me such confidence in myself, although I’d had no chance in life. The house church helped me a lot. That’s all I can say.”

(Robert & Julia Banks, ‘The Church Comes Home’ [Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1998], pp. 220-1.)

But as Bono says, I still haven't found what I am looking for.

The war against segregation

I may not agree with every belief and practice of The Salvation Army, but I think they have gotten it right in their emphasis on reaching the poor with the Good News of Jesus Christ and meeting human needs in His name without discrimination. And I am especially impressed by their founder’s strong conviction for the inclusion of the poor and marginalised within the local church community. Here is an excerpt from a biography of the Booths written by Helen K. Hosier:

Booth was also convinced that the wealthiest in Nottingham should show God’s love to the neediest street person. One Sunday, the Reverend Samuel Dunn was sitting comfortably on his ornate red plush pulpit chair in the Broad Street Chapel and the congregation was singing when the chapel’s outer door suddenly swung open. In came a shuffling, shabby, almost ragged contingent of men and women, obviously nervous and uncomfortable in the presence of the chapel people who were made up mostly of mill managers, shopkeepers, and their well-dressed wives.

Behind the ragged group stood “Wilful Will,” blocking the efforts of those visitors who were fearful and wanting to leave the church. Then William began ushering his charges into the pews. The Reverend Dunn watched in dismay. It was totally unprecedented. In those days, the poor, if they even came to chapel, entered by another door and were segregated into benches with no backs or cushions, behind a partition that screened them from the eyes of the congregation, as well as the pulpit. The regular members of the congregation stared, glared, whispered, and snorted. Some changed seats to avoid any contact with the “riffraff.”

Following the service, young William Booth was confronted by angry deacons and the pastor. “Now, lad,” the Reverend Dunn began, “it’s a fine thing you are doing to help these poor souls, but you should have sat them in the reserved section. In the future, if you wish to bring in such people, they are to enter by the side door and sit on those benches.”

“I don’t see why,” young William said. “They came to worship God the same as the rest of us. Are they to be set apart for that?”

“No, no, lad, of course not. But – well, William, they may be crawling with lice and vermin, and they make our good women uneasy.”

“They did the best they could with what they have. They’ve cleaned themselves up for this occasion. I know their clothes are shabby and threadbare, but I’m not interested in their clothes. I’m interested in their souls.”

“Well, uh… that’s another thing… walking in the front door looking like that gives decent people the wrong impression about our congregation,” responded one church man. Glancing around for support from the others, he continued, “We must insist that if you bring this rabble here again, you bring them in through the back door and seat them in the poor section.”

“They’re not rabble,” Booth said. “They’re men and women seeking salvation – and it seems to me that in the house of God they should be free to sit where they please. Good day, gentlemen.”

It was his first brush with church society, but the memory of that event burned itself into his heart and mind and was to become a determining force in the years ahead. His actions made many people in his church indignant. Even his own mother and sisters believed that the salvation of these drunken outcasts was not possible. They may have been sincere in their beliefs, but they were wrong and the young man knew it.

… The longer he worked with the people in the East End, the more he appreciated how reluctant they were to attend traditional churches. And remembering some of the reactions he’d seen back when he had brought poor converts to church when he first moved to London while in his early twenties, William could sympathize. No one wanted to go where they were not welcome.

(From ‘William & Catherine Booth’, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.)

I wonder how many evangelical churches today are guilty of what is written in James chapter 2…

Black hole of charity

This blog is inspired by what Jesus says in Luke 14:12-14, which shows us what God requires His church to be, that is, a truly inclusive community (see here and here). This passage also shows us how far we have missed the mark. John Piper preached a sermon on 13 August 1995 entitled ‘This Man Receives Sinners And Eats With Them’ which opened my eyes to the full implication of this biblical passage when I read it a few years ago. Here is an excerpt:

One of the great cravings of our sinful human heart is the pleasure of being exalted by the importance of the people we know and the people we spend time with. We feel a kind of substitute significance when significant people take notice of us. And if we love this feeling enough, it will make us indifferent to unimportant people, and eventually make us contemptuous of them. In other words there is a close connection between the first issue in Luke 14 and the second issue: between apathy toward a man with dropsy and craving for the best seats at the feast. Craving our own honor blinds us to the beauty of serving the lowly.

So in verses 12-14 Jesus presses the issue of self-exaltation in a striking way:

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and repayment come to you. But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

So Jesus says to this man who invited him: You and your friends devote your life – in a kind of mutual admiration society – to having each other over for dinner and spending time with each other. And when you get together you vie for getting the most attention from each other. And the result is that your life is one of “upright” indifference to the “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” Why? Because there is no payoff in this world for your self-exaltation. They can’t invite you back. They are a kind of black hole of charity. You give and you give and you give, and they stay blind and lame and maimed and poor, so they can’t invite you back.

But Jesus says: there is a reward if you love the outcast, the unimportant. Verse 14:

… you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

In other words the power to get free from bondage to self-exaltation and apathy toward unattractive people with dropsy, is to love what God will be for you in the resurrection more than you love hobnobbing with important people and the pleasures of a closed dinner circle.

In other words what frees you to live radically for others in this world is the confidence that this world is not the main world.

Then in verses 15-24 Jesus launches into a parable about a banquet. It’s a picture of God’s invitation to the great banquet of Christianity. Verse 16:

A certain man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many.

But one by one they refused to come. One had a field to go see (v. 18). Another had to go check out five yoke of oxen (v. 19). Another had just married a wife and couldn’t come (v. 20).

Notice it’s not evil things. It’s just ordinary life that’s keeping people from the kingdom. People who just live as if this world is the main world.

So the host of the dinner in the parable said to his servant (in verse 21),

Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.

Now notice that this list of people in verse 21 is exactly the same list as in verse 13. So he had told them before that when they give a dinner they should invite the outcasts and the poor. Now he is telling them with a parable that this is what God does. God’s heart is expansive toward the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame.

(By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: www.desiringGod.org. Email: mail@desiringGod.org. Toll Free: 1.888.346.4700.)

I believe that God wants us to be channels of His divine healing for those who are sick (see Mark 16:18). And we read in many accounts in the Gospels that Jesus healed all the sick who came to Him. So in charismatic churches today, we pray for divine healing and expect that people be healed instantly or at least over time. Some do get healed. But some don’t, even after receiving repeated prayers and ministry. And if we are insensitive, we could alienate them because we do not know how to fit them into our “health and wealth” theology.

In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus expects us to encounter some people who will not be healed of their disabilities nor be economically independent enough to contribute financially to the church. Jesus is not talking about those who are able but choose not to work (see 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). According to John Piper, Jesus is referring to those who “can’t invite you back. They are a kind of black hole of charity. You give and you give and you give, and they stay blind and lame and maimed and poor, so they can’t invite you back.”

Jesus has not called us to wait passively for this group of people to come to the church, but to actively “invite” them into our community and to love them in practical ways. Not just doing one-off or occasional acts of charity (which really do not require much commitment on our part), but to meet their needs over the long haul. And not just meeting their spiritual needs, but social and material needs as well. It is no wonder that Jesus uses the context of a meal (which was a sign of friendship and intimacy in those days) to illustrate how we should relate with the poor and the needy.