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.