Jesus Project, Day 1

As a liberal Christian, sometimes I lose a little focus when it comes to Jesus.  I love him, I revere him, but I may forget why.  I also tend to get too "heady", meaning dealing with my faith in Jesus with my analytical head more than my heart. So I thought I'd do a note a day, for 10 days, looking at Jesus' quotes from the Gospels.  Here is the first one:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you svisited me, I was in prison and you came to me.


Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?'


And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'"
(Matthew 25.35-40 ESV)


This will probably come up more than once in this little project, but I always LOVE how Jesus emphasises care for each other.

In Jesus' time, in his culture, hospitality was quite important.  They didn't have gas stations or motels for people who traveled.  People relied on each other a lot more than we do.  It was an essential part of their culture to welcome travelers, offer a place to stay, a bite to eat, etc.  Jesus himself openly relied on the kindness of strangers while he did his work.

In our culture, we seem to stress self-reliance over anything else.  "Charity begins at home." (by Charles Dickens, not in the Bible.)  "God helps those who help themselves."  (by English political theorist Algernon Sidney, then by Benjamin Franklin, also not in the Bible.)  These idioms seem wise to a point -- taking care of yourself and family is certainly critical.  But Christ points out that our family is not only those who are connected to us by birth and blood.  Christ -- the Source of Life -- is in us all, and thus makes us ALL family.

Further, he points out that we are not responsible for taking care of those who seem nice, or cute.  As children of God, we are to treat every living person with the love and respect that we hold for Jesus.  This includes people who have not lived perfect lives ("I was in prison and you came to me").  It means that we welcome those who are strange to us (those from other lands, other cultures, other religions).  And for some reason, I think it means taking care of people who have also fallen off their rocker (naked people), though I'm sure he meant those who didn't have adequate clothing.  :)