Dale took me to the TobyMac Concert on Friday night…it was awesome by the way…and I heard the coolest thing…Craig West from KXOJ’s morning show is going to spend 2 days (yesterday and today) as a homeless man in downtown Tulsa. He grew a scruffy beard for a few weeks, didn’t eat or bathe all day Sunday, and Monday morning at 9am, Bob dropped him off in downtown with only the clothes on his back, a blanket, and a cell phone (to call in reports to the station to let the listeners know what he was going through). This morning he was awakened by a security guard who kicked him off of the stoop he took as a bed the night before. He went over to a nearby park bench and sat. A few business people were eating their fast-food brecky on a nearby bench. He looked upon their breakfast burritos like they were steak dinners complete with baked potatoes. They threw half of the thing away, in the trash. And he was hungry, sitting nearby.
Makes ya think.
Just like something similar happening at the church I attend, and have attended since I was about 4 years old. This Sunday, we had our annual Congregational Thanksgiving Dinner; it always kicks-off the Holiday season for me in a way -- the Holiday Season that we all associate with a time to give, as if we shouldn’t give throughout the rest of the year or something. Anyways, after the meal was over, my husband stayed to help the kitchen ladies clean up and get everything back to normal for next Sunday’s services. He came and got me and I followed him as he pushed a rolly-trash bin through the crowd of people, through the kitchen and out the back door. He looked like he was going to be sick to his stomach. He explained to me why he was feeling so terrible; he said that he just watched a woman take tin pan after tin pan, each full, or mostly full of food, and throw it into the trash bin and proceed to ask him to throw it into the dumpster. That makes me sad.
What about all of the mouths that could feed, the stomachs that could fill?
What about the poor, those who are in need?
Jesus told us to give to these people, He told us to look after the poor, the widowed, the orphaned. He wants us to put ourselves second and them to be first on our hearts. We all had full bellies that night, and it was like I could hear the tummies growl of the too many children in Oklahoma, alone, who go to bed with empty tummies every night. The Central Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma reported that one in 5 children in Northeastern Oklahoma lives in poverty. And that is in our own backyard. Sometimes I forget that there is poverty and hunger and hurting all around me.
I love my church, don’t get me wrong, and they are great, good, loving, and giving people, I just think that this in a place where there was an opportunity to give, to help the poor, to take care of our brothers and sisters, and they neglected to think of it. They simply forgot. And I think that is the tragedy. I think that if someone would have thought of it, if they would have brought it up, they would have been more than happy to give what we have remaining, or in that case, to make a little extra to plan to give to others. That’s what I want to be; I want to be that voice that they hear to remind them of the empty bellies that can be fed. I want to open their eyes to the opportunity God has given us to give and to help the ones He loves. I was talking this through with a girl at work this morning, and she brought up a good verse…
…For I was hungry and you fed me.
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.
I was a stranger and you invited me into your home.
I was naked and you gave me clothing.
I was sick and you cared for me.
I was in prison and you visited me...
…I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters,
you were doing it to me!...
{see Mathew 25:31-46}
…what if it was Jesus we could have fed?
