Today I share some insights from Nadia Bolz-Weber:
“… while we as people of God are certainly called to feed the hungry and cloth the naked … It can be dangerous when it starts to feel like we are placing ourselves above the world waiting to descend on those below so we can be the “blessing” they’ve been waiting for like it or not. It can so easily become a well-meaning but insidious blend of benevolence and paternalism. It can so easily become pimping the poor so that we can feel like we are being good little Christs for them.
Jesus says I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Which means … Christ comes not in the form of those who feed the hungry but in the hungry being fed. Christ comes not in the form of those who visit the imprisoned but in the imprisoned being cared for. And to be clear, Christ does not come to us AS the poor and hungry. Because as anyone for whom the poor are not an abstraction but actual flesh and blood people knows … the poor and hungry and imprisoned are not a romantic special class of Christ like people. And those who meet their needs are not a romantic special class of Christ like people. We all are equally as Sinful and Saintly as the other. No, Christ comes to us IN the needs of the poor and hungry, needs that are met by another so that the gleaming redemption of God might be known. And we are all the needy and the ones who meet needs. Placing ourselves or anyone else in only one category or another is to tell ourselves the wrong story entirely.”
Peace, Alan
