Be compassionate

Iwas reminded recently of the time several years ago when a man came by the church office and asked if we could help him with some gas for his car. The church secretary who handled the benevolence ministry gave him a voucher that was good for $15 down at the local fuel stop.

Apparently, the man thought it was a little frugal and asked her if she knew what WWJD meant (What Would Jesus Do)? Then he asked her if she had ever read the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37).

Mary, the church secretary, didn’t appreciate the sermon this guy preached and she didn’t get his point, but I did loud and clear: Jesus isn’t cheap and the church shouldn’t be cheap either.

Later I shared the story with the children’s director and two deacons and all of them got angry about the man’s attitude. I kind of get that too, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you right? But again, this man’s point was a touchdown.

While I’m not very political, I was a pre-law major in school therefore I could debate both sides of this argument, but I tend to appreciate the man’s idea that Jesus would have given him more than $15 worth of gas.

We drove a Mini Cooper convertible at the time of this incident and $15 would have only given us about a quarter of a tank of gas. In other words, we wouldn’t have gotten very far down the road on such a small contribution.

I’ve never thought about Jesus pumping my gas but as I do I think I see Jesus filling it up and then topping it off, you know squeezing that trigger a couple more times to make sure it really was full.

The ministry is more complicated than what I’m about to share but our obligation is to give to those who ask (Matthew 5:42), give what we can and leave the rest up to God. God is generous and we are to imitate Him (Ephesians 5:1).

We are so hypocritical, we like to say things like, God has all the money in the world. In fact, Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” The problem is too often what we say and what we practice are two different things. Am I right?

Why are we so angry at the guy who needs some fuel to get down the road? Where’s the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12)? Where’s love and just a general care and concern for our fellow man?

I don’t know what your version of Jesus is but mine is compassionate. He looked down at a community of people and said, “I’d like to embrace you like kids. Like a mother hen gathering her chicks.” My point is Jesus is not mad at people, He loves them, and He serves them.

In Luke 7:11-17 Jesus stops a funeral procession because a single mom had lost her only son and there were no government safety nets back in the day so this dear woman would have been in a hard spot to cover groceries and rent. Jesus brings the dead son back to life (he would have been the family provider).

Please notice Jesus did not ask questions, give a sermon or get weird about it, He just saw what needed to be done and did it.

Can that be a picture of the church today? I think it can be. We just need to stop asking so many questions, stop preaching mini-sermons, stop being so cheap (and practice what we preach—Psalm 24:1) and start stopping funerals.

He told me to tell you that.