We have all heard the quotes from the gospels about clothing
the naked, taking in the stranger, visiting the prisoners, caring for the sick,
giving water to the thirsty, and feeding the hungry. And we are so quick to make this checklist of
things we need to do as Christians when we see such things. We will volunteer at nursing homes,
hospitals, and food lines for the homeless. We may even raise a bunch of money and travel for hours to do such
things in 3rd world countries, all the while telling ourselves
“doing it for Jesus himself”. But we
often overlook the heart of what Jesus was saying.
This last month (August) when I was
in Zambia, I found out that people in this area have an interesting view of
missionaries. More specifically, they
are under the impression that missionaries walk around with sermons in their
back pockets. When we would go out
“evangelizing” to locals (90% of which knew Jesus already), we would introduce
ourselves and they would always say the same line: “Please share what you have
prepared.” Prepared? We didn’t know we were supposed to prepare something. So we would do our best to come up with
something on the fly, which God usually blessed, and move on to the next
house. We would get to the next house,
and once again, “Please share what you have prepared.” What?! Again? And the translator would
expect something different from last time.
And it
would not just happen while evangelizing. We would go to choir practice (long story) and at the end, the choir
director would look at us and say, “Please share what you have prepared.” We would go to a wedding, attend a
graduation-ish ceremony, and even climb a small mountain for recreation with
only one other person, and we would always hear the same thing. “Please share what you have prepared.” It was exhausting “preparing” so many
messages. It was like cramming for
finals in 15 ½ seconds. And for that
reason, it was great. It taught us that
we must always be “prepared” to feed the hungry.
In
third world missions it is hard to remember that Jesus didn’t just mean the
physically hungry. When you are
surrounded by the physically hungry and ill-clothed and estranged and imprisoned
and sick and thirsty, it can be easy to forget that Jesus calls us to clothe
the sinner in righteousness, love those who are strangers to compassion, free
those in bondage, bring the Sick to The Physician, give living water to the to
those thirsting for the Spirit, and giving the bread of life to those who
hunger for truth. We need to stop
thinking only of the physical but of the spiritual as well. We need to keep our eye on the ball because
the enemy would be just fine with us handing out plates of rice the whole year
and never feed their souls.
