Last night I went out to hang with some homeless friends under a bridge, and I witnessed something that broke my heart: A couple hundred of "the least of these" standing hungry and broken beneath a bridge, waiting for a bite to eat that they might no longer be hungry, or a cup of water to drink that they might no longer thirst. Only a few feet away were tables covered with good food, clean water and intact clothing, and it would seem for a moment as if all their needs were about to be met. Until the guy praying for the meal breaks off his prayer to start preaching.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against preaching... I'm a preacher. I believe in the power of words to bring home the timeless truths of God. Jesus himself preached, as did Peter and Paul. I did however, have a problem with this. As the multitudes stood waiting, helpless to leave unless they wanted to go yet another day without a meal, he yelled at the top of his lungs, shouting about hell and condemnation and telling these people how absolutely terrible they were. Every now and again a verse of scripture was interspersed through the clamor, but when it was heard I wept, for the words of Christ were horribly misrepresented as they emanated from this man's mouth. It was clear to me and those who I was with that the only thing this "gospel" was doing was hardening these peoples hearts.
Think with me for a moment, how did Jesus do ministry? He sat down and ate with sinners, he developed genuine relationships with people and loved on them. To the "religious" folk who wanted to condemn he spoke harshly, but to the lost and the broken he showed love. This is what we must do! We must meet people where they are at and love them unconditionally. Jesus did not tell us to, "love your neighbor until he converts and stop loving him if he doesn't," but to "love your neighbor as yourself" and to "love one another as I have loved you."
What would it look like for us to love unconditionally? To reach out and to treat those whom society has marginalized like a human being? That's all they want! Imagine what it would be like to go through life being judged constantly people assuming that you got to be where you are at because of drugs, alcohol or laziness; people treating you as if you where somehow inferior--sub-human because of the circumstances you have fallen upon.
Or even imagine for a moment that you find yourself without a job, without a home and without a friend because of bad choices you have made. And now, no one will even look you in the eye! Imagine for a moment the brokenness, imagine the despair. Now imagine for a moment that someone looks you in the eye and says, "good morning friend, is there anything I can do for you? Can I get you food or water? Perhaps some clean clothes? Is there some way I could be praying for you today?" What if someone were to ask your name... a name that had become unfamiliar to your own lips from neglect, because no one cared to ask. What if you were treated like an actual person bearing the Imago Dei and dearly loved by your Creator?
Would not this give you hope? And if this were to happen consistently, wouldn't you wonder, "what makes this person so different? Why do they care so much about me? They say they're 'just a group of folks trying to follow Jesus, and he told us to love people so that's what we're doing...' What if there's something to this Jesus person?"
Friends, preaching's all well and good, but its not going to validate itself! You can talk and talk until you're blue in the face but if there is nothing to lend credence to your words other than the words themselves, then the words won't have a whole lot of impact. It is a changed life that will bear witness to the truth of your words, a life changed by Jesus and inspired to follow in his footsteps by loving people without limits or conditions.
And what if they don't respond to your kindness with anything more than a smile and a thank you? We keep loving them! The love of God is not conditional on conversion, and ours shouldn't be either. We're called to feed the hungry, even when they are our enemies (Romans 12:20) and to clothe the naked (Matthew 25:35). For Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40 ).
So do I think we should even preach to the poor and marginalized when we go to serve them? Well, in the traditional evangelistic sense? No. I believe our lives of love and service are to be our witness and these things will speak far louder than our words ever could. The church has gotten a bad rap, we're hypocritical don't you know? And we judge and condemn. We don't actually care for those who we preach Christ to, we just want them to convert, be baptized and go home.
The truth is, if people believe that about us they will want nothing to do with what we have to say or the Jesus we represent. We must first prove in a very real and tangible way that we genuinely love those who we profess to, and that we care for them holistically. Don't mistake me here, the key word is genuinely. This isn't some new-fangled evangelism scheme to make converts. Listen: In order to convince people you genuinely love them... we need to genuinely love them! We're not pretending to love people so that they'll believe us and repent, I can't say it enough--Love is not conditional upon repentance! We're to be about genuinely loving people because that's what Jesus was about. Does genuine love mean that eventually we address spiritual needs? Yes. But we do that from a place of friendship, not detached sunday-school street-evangelism.
