1 John 4:20 - If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
If God is God, which God is, then the odds are that sometime today someone is going to come right before your very eyes and, in some outlandish (extremely different) way, ask you for help. And because of their outlandishness, you're not going to want to help them. This may happen at your work or the grocery or the gas station or right at your front door. But no matter where it is, put down your inclination not to help the poor souls standing before you and go right ahead and help because God, who is God, is going to work on your conscience with today's Bible verse until you do.
Like God did on me yesterday.
People come to our church all the time and ask for help, but these folks yesterday were outlandish. This guy comes to the door and rings the doorbell and, with a raspy voice, asks if we can fix him and his family a hot meal while they get a shower and start to bed down for the night. I just about started laughing in his face because I didn't know we had "hotel accommodations available" posted anywhere on our property, and nobody had ever asked such.
But then it got better as I saw a woman and about six year old boy walking to the door, and, in a totally surreal way, they're walking forwards but in circles and straight-legged, as if they're in some sort of old timey, black and white, Charlie Chaplin, Keystone cops, silent movie kind of thing. And I'm thinking, this is some sort of "Smile, you're on Candid Camera" 1970's show-stunt that friends of mine had planned for 4 p.m. on a Thursday.
So I let them in too, and I could feel our new secretary also watching in disbelief as the little sweaty boy makes a bee-line for me to hug me, saying something about his appreciation for the shower, beds, and hot meal we're going to give them while the man and woman start this Abbott and Costello dialogue, arguing about the real problems with the car even as they can't agree on how far they've driven and where they're going and who's about to die when they get there.
I mean, this had to be a show because the boy then looks at me like Opie Taylor off Andy Griffith and sounds just like Forrest Gump as he asks me where the "faciiiiilitieeeees" are. So I point them and tell them I need to escort them because we have a preschool and, as he and the woman get going in the women's restroom, I hear all sorts of potty-mouth talk that ends with her saying that she's gonna have to git im to the hosPITuuuuul because she can't tell if it's Kool-Aid or blood in Opie Taylor's "stool," as she said.
So our secretary has gotten a food box as we return from the "faciiiiilitieeeees" and I start to my car because I'm going to fill their gas tank instead of give cash and I cannot believe the 30-year old, light blue, so filled with stuff that you can't see the kid, straight out of a smash-up derby, variously-sized tire, car that's coming my way and God starts saying, "Chris, this is so outlandish that it's not funny."
Well, then we get to the gas station and their car is hippity-hopping toward the pumps and they get out and start the Abbott and Costello thing again as they argue as to whether or not the gas is going to spew out when they take off the cap since they say some guy put a new fuel pump on wrong 200 miles back but about 50 miles ago they fixed it alongside the road. Well, he's yelling at her about where she learned to drive and she tells him just to start bouncing the back of the car so it'll take the gas and as he actually starts to bounce it he's also getting the gas pump to the car and he hits her on the head with the black hose because he didn't realize she was bending over, looking under the car to see if it was leaking gas and taking in air through the fuel pump and the boy starts asking if he can either help with the hose or go inside and have more bloody Kool-Aid come out of his body. At this point, literally the whole gas station is watching and listening in disbelief. And the surrealness continued through pumping the gas and driving next door to Wendy's where we went inside and the next Abbott-Costello dialogue continued about the best hot foods to eat so they could stay cool in their un-air conditioned car which was when I finally noticed that none of the people had teeth.
So in addition to the food box at church and the $12 of gas that barely trickled in with their trick fuel line and some air-conditioned hot food, I offered them the $60 in my pocket, at which point they all gave me sweaty, stinky hugs, told me they loved me, and asked if we could stop right there and pray with all the good folk there at Wendy's Old-fashioned hamburgs, yes, hamburgs. So we prayed, the boy gave me one last hug and told me I must've been Jesus, and I walked to my stinkin' $31.000 car and started to cry.
After all, what else would you do when the invisible God visits you on a Thursday afternoon through visible people?
1 John 4:20 - If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
Sometime today someone is going to come right before your very eyes and, in some outlandish (extremely different) way, ask you for help.
Help 'em, and in so doing...
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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