When Peter James and John, who were fishing on the Sea of Galilee, were called by Jesus to follow him, we are told that they left everything to follow him. They went where he went, into small towns and across the countryside where people in large numbers came out to him.
They went to people who were marginalized by sickness, lepers who had to stay outside the community; they went to people in need of God’s healing and deliverance. Jesus led his followers out to welcome “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” These followers became part of Jesus’ mission “to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed.”
Jesus still comes to needy people today through his followers. In fact, you can recognize followers of Jesus by their compassion for those who are pressed to the margins of our society and who care for others regardless of their station in life. Followers of Jesus—when they are following Jesus—look beyond people’s faults and see their needs. With the grace and transformation they have experienced in Christ, they serve, most of them out of the limelight. They themselves are broken people reaching out to other broken people with the mercy and healing they have received.
You know Jesus’ followers by their actions, not by their doctrines and theologies. You know them by their compassion. Not all who name the name of Christ, know Christ. And not all who do not go by the name Christian are distant from Christ. In their actions, it can be seen that they have touched the Christ reality.
Jesus said, “They will know you by your love.” They will not know you because you prospered and became rich—and praised God for your status in a world that makes much of the rich and powerful. They will not know you by a politics that judges others and categorizes the “sinners” of our age. (The religious leaders of Jesus day ridiculed Jesus for eating with sinners. And Jesus did not hold back words of judgment regarding the actions of religious leaders whose religion operated far from the heart of God.)
James, who was very possibly a brother of Jesus, sounds like Jesus when he calls out those who have made themselves rich by the impoverishment of others. James wrote:
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure during the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.
There are many who put themselves forward as Christian leaders who avoid this text from the Bible. And yet it is a word for our times. We have leaders with money and power who craft legislation that furthers their riches and power on the backs of those who struggle to get food on the table and get the health care they need. They judge others for their poverty while giving handouts to themselves, taking from those we came to see as “essential workers” during the COVID health crisis.
What do we make of the “big, beautiful bill” our president is pushing through congress? How do we understand its meaning and discern its impact? Who is it crafted for? What kinds of rationalizations and justifications are being promulgated to sell the bill to people it will not help? How are people viewed in this bill? How are the rich viewed? How are the poor viewed?
To leaders, especially religious leaders, Jesus said, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”