Monday, February 6, 2012

Do Your Actions Reflect Jesus?

Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s royal command found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you pay special attention to the rich, you are committing a sin, for you are guilty of breaking that law. -- James 2:8-9

Last week Republican forerunner Mitt Romney said he wasn’t worried about the poor. There are enough government programs to take care of them, he said. He’s concerned about the middle class. I am too. I also wondered why he was ignoring the working poor.

But I’m most concerned about the Christians who cheered him on. It’s as though we’ve gotten so accustomed to making excuses for not doing good, that we don’t understand how far we are from what God has clearly commanded.

I am a cynic. Let me just say that right from the start. I’ve observed many, many instances where those in unfortunate circumstances have taken advantage of the system, they’ve played sob stories to unsuspecting good people, and they’ve squandered opportunities again and again.

That said, the Bible doesn’t say anything about first qualifying the poor as being “worthy” before we help them. As Christians, we’re to do what we can. We’re to share our excess with those in need. Whether we think they deserve it or not isn’t even a factor for us. We’re to do what God tells us to do and trust God to handle the worthiness part.

Beth Moore made an observation in her study on the book of James. She said that we used to focus on race as the great divide. Most folks know better now. So we’ve moved on to social class. Someone with a lot of bling gets better treatment than someone who doesn’t have any bling.

It’s as though we truly believe that someone who has a lot of stuff is more worthy than someone who doesn’t. We don’t necessarily intend to do it. We try to be fair and equitable. But there are the people “like” us and there are those who aren’t. And we treat them differently.

Part of it is strictly a comfort zone thing. We feel comfortable with people who share the same interests and neighborhood with us. We’re not quite sure how to deal with someone who is mentally ill, someone who is jobless, someone who is sick, someone who is homeless.

One of the saddest things to watch is when a person of means suddenly has a financial downfall. It could be through a job loss or illness. It doesn’t matter. But all their “friends” don’t have time for them anymore. People avoid them. And then they know, they see, they understand what it feels like to be treated differently by those they once admired and viewed as equals.

Sometimes being a Christian, really doing what God says to do, is uncomfortable. Sometimes it causes us to reach out to people we’d rather not know and confront issues and prejudices we never knew existed. Like Jesus. He showed us what to do. So why don’t we?