Hands and Feet

Matthew 25 is known as the story of the sheep and the goats.  It's one of the most convicting passages in the Bible, because it clearly states that if we serve the least of our brothers and sisters, we are actually serving Jesus.  And if we fail to help these hungry, thirsty, lonely children of God, we are actually failing Jesus himself.  The sheep go to eternal life with the Father, the goats to eternal punishment. Pretty sobering.

As one small way in which I'm trying to live out Matthew 25, I've been helping out with two after-school kids' clubs, trying my best to play with the kids and love them for a few hours each week.

But it is not always easy.  These kids smell.  They have open sores.  They cough on me, usually in my face. They love to touch my hair with their dirty hands.  Sometimes the little ones pee on me.  If they don't get a turn on the play equipment, they sob, yell and even hit me or each other with their fists.  Even after nearly six months of studying Swahili, I can't understand very much of what they say.

Many weeks, I go home afterwards tired, discouraged, and in great need of a shower.  Some weeks it's really hard to motivate myself to go and serve because it's not always clear that my presence is actually making a difference.  Although there are certainly moments of great blessing, it's not always a transcendent experience.

In short, I like the idea of being Jesus' hands and feet much more than the actual reality of doing so. Somewhere along the road, I think a lot of us develop a completely glamorized notion of service that is at odds with real life.  We want the pretty picture without the actual sweat and tears behind it.  But we can learn from Jesus that service is gritty, messy work.  He went out among the masses.  He touched lepers.  He showed love to prostitutes. The crowds were constantly thronging around him, wanting more of His miracles but not always more of Him. Sometimes He withdrew to a solitary place, but most often, "He had compassion on them." (Matthew 9:36 among many references).

Dictionary.com tells me that the definition of compassion is "a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering."

Compassion is definitely the key to serving these desperately poor kids.  So I'll keep showing up with compassion and loving them.  And I'll remember that Jesus wouldn't turn His face in disgust from them or turn them away, but would say, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14).

And how could you help from loving these precious kids...even if they pee on you?