‘They’ are one of His.

The table is full, both of friends and of food. The smell of spices is rich in the air, wafting from plates and plates of lovingly prepared dishes. Wine is poured into glasses liberally from wineskins stitched soundly and holding the best of the best — only the best for those we love, after all. These are the best of the best people, too. These are the ones whom we know to be upstanding, and whom we trust with money and homes and decisions that matter.

Another table, just across town, is full. It is full, both of friends and of food. The smell of bread rises in the air, lovingly kneaded and tended to across a day and just baked. Wine is poured and though the first sip is sour, the company is sweet enough to counteract the effects of the old wineskins. It’s a strange sort of gathering here — the tax collector sits beside the seat of honour and a fisherman nearby, women find a place at this table somehow when they find themselves unwelcome at so many others. They are the ones whom we wonder about, who we do not know the stories or the standards of. The ones who we often think of as statistics rather than those to sit with.

But ‘they’ are one of His.

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Week by week churches serve the vulnerable in their communities with various ministries — some of food, some of finances, some of services and some of studies — and these ministries are supported by congregations and celebrated for their generosity of heart and finances. It seems, however, that there is a gap between those in the church — the upstanding, the trusted, the supporters — and those who use such ministries — the housing commission residents, the homeless, the ‘other’ — and it is easy to leave this separation in place. What benefit, after all, would there be to join the two? It would be a messy marriage of communities, to say the least.

God, however, has already declared this marriage made and what He has joined together, man must not separate.

If we are speaking of the broad category of ‘social justice’ ministries, we must look to the way Jesus approached the outsiders. We must look to the way He approached Levi at the tax booth and called him not only follower, but friend. We must look to the way He saw Zaccheus in the tree and though he was corrupt with the money entrusted to him, Jesus invited himself for a meal. We must look to the way he stood with the woman caught in adultery and did not flinch, did not shy away, did not call her ‘other’ but called her friend. We must look to the way He looked to us, separated and unseen, and invited us to His table for all eternity — to be joined, to be seen, to be loved.

But in the bubble so many of us live in — middle to upper class, white, and educated — we are so unfamiliar with the lives of those who utilise these ministries and instead of asking their name we ask what they would do with the money we give them, and if that is a choice we approve of. We are afraid that the problem is too big and we cannot fix it and so we avoid eye contact and we shuffle along and think about it later on (how many of us have later on thought that they should have simply stopped and asked if there was anything someone needed?). We have anxieties and we have fears.

Yet, Jesus calls them ‘His’ and He calls us His and we are one and the same to our God. Image bearers, beloved ones, wanderers along the narrow road who stumble too often and too painfully onto the wide road.

He knows their names just as He knows ours. Logistics and five year plans and flyer designs aside, we must know those who we are serving through these ministries and we must love them as He does, and as He loves us.

Let’s learn their names.

Let’s create space for them to be welcome into community without fear or judgement or conditions.

Let’s open our home and our hearts.

Let’s laugh together, if we would be so bold.

There is no us and there is no them. A man without a home to live in must be just as accepted among God’s people as the baby just born to a family that has been in the congregation for generations. We have allowed a divide of society to infest the church and cause us to call those who are His ‘others’ as though they are not us and we are not them… and yet, we are and they are.

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If ‘they’ are one of His, the way forward is not a simple one. It requires facing fears and anxieties and it requires stepping into stories that may shock us. It requires visiting parts of town that we normally avoid, even in the daylight.

It requires a change in our worldview, shifting our sight to be more aligned with a table full of sinners than a table of the righteous. Yes, there may be the occasional cuss word called out at our table — but oh, we will be more loved there than we could ever imagine and we will be able to love more fully because of that love.

They are one of His.

And we? We are too.