The Least of These and Loophole Christianity
I have been a Christian a very long time. One could say I was figuratively born into the church, as my mother and father were devout believers who had me deeply entrenched in their Southern Baptist faith since infancy. When I was born, I was given my very own Bible, a tiny pink edition of the New Testament that was inscribed with my name. I was in Sunday school before regular school, learning all about the Bible stories that were supposed to lay the foundation of a Christian faith it was fully expected of me to adopt, practice and evangelize.
I was “saved” at age eight, baptized at age twelve, read the Bible for the first time front to back (the whole thing, not just the New Testament,) by the time I was fifteen. This was inspired after I saw the mini-series Jesus of Nazareth one Easter when it was rerun. I finally mustered the wherewithal to see the story in its entirety, including the crucifixion, which was devastating by the time we got to it.
I knew the story of course, but I hadn’t ever opened my heart to feel it. When you’re brought up cowering before a Fire & Brimstone kind of pulpit, you ingest Scripture warily, once removed to protect yourself from trauma. This is especially true if you’ve already been traumatized and the sins you asked to be washed away weren’t even your own.
Why else would an eight-year-old be compelled to answer an altar call?
By the time I watched the miniseries, however, Jesus became more than a concept. He appeared as a flesh and blood man, albeit the whitewashed version. This made the story more three-dimensional and it affected me more than all the years of church that came before it. As a result I was the tender age of fifteen when I became passionate about pursuing the Real story contained in a book I rarely cracked unless told to do so by the preacher on Sunday mornings. I took ownership of my faith as my own, not just something passed down from my family.
Bluntly, the Jesus in that miniseries was not the Fire & Brimstone God preached from the Southern Baptist pulpit, who was ready to smite and send one to hell for the slightest infraction. He was kind. Compassionate. And He stood straight up to those who wanted to use religion to bully or do harm.
I was so passionate about this new relationship with this amazing, brave, heroic, loving, merciful and human Jesus in fact that I branched away from my Southern Baptist roots and found a new church home with a charismatic branch of Christianity, despite my being brought up in a very Them Vs. Us kind of denomination.
IYKYK.
No one judges Christians like other Christians. They want to clash on theological points, how they interpret Scripture, how they worship, how they pray, what they wear and sometimes even the shapes of their churches. (Wish I was kidding.)
They very much like to sort and segregate, which you will see will come into play a little later.
In the forty years since these baby Christian days, I have belonged to many types of churches with more misses than hits trying to find a spiritual home. It was hard to find the Jesus I knew from my reading of the Scripture housed within the brick and mortar walls of organized religion, which kind of went with the flow of whatever was happening on the world stage at the time.
As a result, my passion likewise waxed and waned over the years, leaning heavily on my belief in Jesus through hard times, like the loss of my newborn son, and even holding some serious grudges against God, like when I lost my first husband, leaving my eleven-year-old son the same fate as eleven-year-old me when my own dad died.
My beliefs have undergone many a transformation, tried and tested through chaotic human experience. I’ve gone from a rigid and fearful adherence to the unerring Word of God, to an understanding of nuances and bigger concepts of compassion and faith that rise even from the human-edited Scripture if you let them.
I know I’m loved more than my worst sin, have come to see hell is a concept, and can also thoughtfully dissect the harmful constructs of religion, which allows loud hate to - pardon the painful pun - trump quiet love every time it has the opportunity.
I am not blind to see how, historically, Man has remade God in his image for his own purposes… mostly money, power and control. And I recognize the awesome and uncomfortable duty of the righteous to rise up against it in holy outrage against any perversion of the heart of the law, which, in case you were wondering, is love.
At least, if you’re going by what Jesus said anyway.
In Jesus’s day, He had to school the scribes and Pharisees on the Seven Woes, warn about the worship of wealth, and flip over tables in the temple to make this point.
It is because of that personal relationship with who Jesus is to me that I have always felt compelled to do the same. If someone is out there slandering someone you love, misrepresenting what they say and what they stand for… you can’t let it stand unchallenged.
You have a moral obligation to flip the table.
To be blunt, the Jesus of the Far Right is a stranger to me. He’s not so much a Savior, God or Messiah, but more a mascot they trot out onto the field whenever they want to get the fans to rally behind their questionable plays.
Shockingly, it works. Every single time.
Their version of Jesus is not reflected in the Scriptures, songs and stories I’ve been taught for more than five decades now. I scour my dog-eared NIV study Bible, or my dad’s old King James Bible, or the Amplified Bible, The Message Bible, The Book or any other version of the Bible I’ve bought or been given, but the scriptures I was taught from childhood haven’t changed.
The Church and ChristiansTM, on the other hand, most certainly have, particularly in recent years. Well, decades, I guess.
My theory is that it comes from the political ascent of the Radical Right, who either were hijacked by Big Money or jumped willingly into the nondescript white panel van for thirty pieces of silver.
The same Church* that told me it was Idolatry to have posters hanging on my wall when I was a kid, that I couldn’t watch movies or listen to music that wasn’t specifically created to honor God because it expressly honored the devil instead, have literally stooped to worshiping a gaudy Golden Calf and call it patriotic Christianity. And they will whip out their standard bumper sticker Scriptures of “Don’ts” as gotchas to deflect any criticism or questioning.
This focus on the rigid laundry list of “sins” has a two-fold purpose:
One, it keeps normal human beings on the defensive. We are fallible creatures who fall so short of perfection that a sacrifice was necessary to save our sorry souls. And no matter how hard we try to walk the line, we’re going to fall out of step. It’s in our nature, a nature God himself created. Perfect humans would need no god to save them. But man-made religion uses these flaws and imperfections to keep us subservient to the power structure of said religion. As long as we are “lesser than” on the road to find God’s “More than,” you’re going to find all sorts of questionable middle-men trying to sell you the bridge.
Two, and more important, it’s easier to follow the list of Don’ts than it is to live by the list of Do’s. This makes #1 so much more effective because it’s quite simply more attractive.
If you’re a normal kinda human, it is easier to follow the Ten Commandments than the Beatitudes. Most people are good. It’s in our nature to be kind to one another and look out for one another. Most major religions have this cornerstone, and atheists and agnostics that have no religion at all manage to live by these same tenants without any threat of eternal punishment to prevent them from doing harm to another human. Therefore, telling someone not to kill, lie, cheat, steal, envy or lust after what belongs to someone else is a LOT easier for most humans to pull off than accepting a life of meek peacemaker who who must dutifully love in the face of hatred while facing persecution on earth, waiting for all blessings that are due to come later.
Maybe even the most strident believers are not so certain that’s coming.
And maybe they’re right to have their doubts.
The Beatitudes are in the book of Matthew, which pulls no punches outlining what you need to do to be rewarded as a devoted, obedient sheep over a self-serving, hypocritical goat. To me, the blueprint of Christian behavior is in Matthew 25:31-40. You’ll recognize it easily by four words: “The Least of These.”
In it, Jesus is using a parable to teach an important lesson on how we’ll be sorted upon His return. It’s an important passage, but recently I’ve come to learn that there is some debate about what I always thought was a very straightforward directive to, you know, treat anyone less fortunate with kindness, mercy and service.
Apparently, there’s a “Oh, Jesus didn’t mean them,” crowd, which leaves me rather gobsmacked. I guess I shouldn’t be, given the propensity of religion to sort, segregate and cherry-pick, but this is something I felt was a little more fundamental and harder to misconstrue.
The Not Them crowd condescends that we need to follow the “context,” in order to justify said sorting, segregating and cherry-picking.
I’m up for that challenge, armed with a lot of receipts written in red ink.
Let’s start with intent. What is the purpose behind the directive to treat The Least of These with mercy and compassion?
A few chapters earlier (Matthew 22:36-40,) Jesus was questioned what was the greatest commandment. It goes a lil’ something like this:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
The Amplified version of this scripture reads this way:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’ 40 The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.”
“Unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others.” Okay. Sounds like the radical Jesus of the New Testament that I know. Very in-line with being Christian, or Christ-like per my five decades of training, going all the way back to Sunday School Jesus loving the little children - all the children of the world.
My favorite interpretation of Matthew 22 comes from The Message, which explains how the question itself was a Gotcha from the Religious Right of that day:
34-36 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”
37-40 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
Both expand on the word “neighbor,” to clarify what Jesus means when answering this question. And this will (sadly) come into play later, for the folks who want to slap Christians Only onto Christ’s teaching… a bonkers take when you consider that Jesus lived His whole life as a Jew, a Rabbi whose teachings were rooted in Judaism. Christianity came later, after His Death and Resurrection, and would be based on the whole of His teachings, which by the way He made accessible both to Jews and Gentiles during his lifetime.
Inserting any kind of exclusivity onto His teachings now is completely bananas to me, and antithetical to the actual teachings of Christ.
But if we’re building on this, and we should - as Jesus basically says it’s the foundation of everything else - then Matthew 25:31-40 isn’t in any way ambiguous when it states your very salvation depends on how you treat “The Least of These.”
Let’s revisit, shall we?
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Woof. That’s pretty direct. How you treat others, particularly those less fortunate - and note, for eternal judgment in verse 45, He doesn’t even make the distinction about brothers and sisters like before - is basically the hard line of where you wind up in the hereafter, per Jesus. And He would be the authority on the subject, given His blood is the price to be paid to save the whole of humanity.
We still believe that, right?
This wasn’t the first time He laid down the law, by the way. Also in Matthew, the most Metal of all of the Gospels, He has this to say of True and False Disciples:
Matthew 7:15“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Matthew is not for the faint of heart or weak in spirit. It gives very clear information on what you need to do to live a Christ-like life with spiritual maturity and the heart of Jesus.
(The above also is very clear how you can tell which Christians are walking the walk instead of just talking the talk, which will also come into play later.)
Now, when I read Matthew 25 way back in the day as a baby Christian, I took The Least of These to mean, you know… everyone. For God so loved the world and all that. I wasn’t that far removed from “red/yellow/black and white, we are all precious in his sight.” It just made sense to me that Jesus would say, you know, if you want to be like me you gotta be groovy to everyone. Especially when you study His ministry in the Bible, where He would show kindness and mercy to, you know… everyone, even when the Churchy people had something to say about it.
Imagine my shock and surprise when I hear people trying to whitewash this cornerstone Scripture to say that we’re only supposed to look out for other Christians, as if showing mercy to all unfortunate folks is just too high a price to pay while wearing the Blood of Christ.
They zero in on this passage in particular, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
For a group of people who can’t even agree on who is Christian enough, it seems a pretty convenient definition to do only the bare minimum, installing guardrails on their compassion.
Instead, they use this as a Get Out of Jail free card to to treat people who aren’t “Christians” poorly (or ignore them completely,) which doesn’t jive with anything I ever read about Jesus. Nor does it make any sense with the context of the teaching, when Christianity didn’t even exist. If you want to argue for any exclusivity, wouldn’t a Rabbi with this teaching isolate mercy only to the Jews?
But, in fact, Jesus was not isolating anything at all. He had a heart for the poor and unfortunate all throughout his ministry, providing inclusive, compassionate empathy even when people around Him thought He was nuts.
They needed exclusivity. And Jesus wasn’t having it.
In Luke 10, Jesus is questioned, directly, about the “neighbor” definition, and answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan:
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
You will note that the man in question, who was beaten and attacked, does not have any qualifiers attached. Good, bad. Rich, poor. Old, young. We have no idea what religion he was, if any. All we know is that he was stripped, beaten and left half-dead. That’s it. A very “Least of These,” scenario.
What defines a “neighbor,” therefore, does not depend on the object of the mercy. They don’t need to deserve it. Qualify for it. He didn’t even ask. He was merely in need, and that was enough.
Highlight that. Underline it twice. Commit it to memory.
In fact, if we’re excluding anyone for not being a neighbor, it’d be the ones who did not show any mercy, despite their religious beliefs. Being a neighbor, therefore, is actionable - and unconditional. A direct commandment from Jesus to “go and do likewise.”
Also something to note if you’re looking to make it to the sheep side instead of being lumped in with the goats.
But that’s not even my favorite part of that passage. It was the following:
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
That means that the person drilling to “determine the context” is the one with ill intent to let himself off the hook.
Let’s see how that looks in the Amplified Bible:
29 But he, wishing to justify and vindicate himself, asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Justify and vindicate! Juicy!
How about the Message?
29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”
“Looking for a loophole.”
Huh.
So, how did Jesus handle this “expert” questioning him on his own teachings, to clarify the word “neighbor”? He used the example of the Samaritans, who were persona non grata to the Jews in Jesus’s day. They were considered “a mixed race who practiced an impure, half-pagan religion,” and in New Testament times, Jews “despised” them and wanted nothing to do with them. The beef between the two groups was long-standing, so much so that Jesus dissuaded his Disciples from going to them with their teaching.
Didn’t stop Jesus, though. Jesus still attempted to minister to them despite most Jews wanting nothing to do with them. I’m sure it was quite shocking to the so-called expert that Jesus would use this example in his parable, because using such a maligned group who equally despised the Jews would be a true test of neighborly love.
This was very on-brand for Jesus.
Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus built bridges, not walls. He tested Hate, he did not give in to it. Ask yourself if Jesus had come across the bloody, broken, beaten man in his parable, would He have stopped to provide assistance? Or walked on by and kept going, “not-my-probleming” right out of Christ-like mercy?
And knowing this, and understanding this, pretty much puts us on par with the Message’s version of The Least of These:
When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.
34-36 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’
37-40 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’
41-43 “Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’
44 “Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’
45 “He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’
Sounds pretty inclusive to me. Which sounds pretty Christ-like to me.
So, why on earth would those preaching “the Good News,” want to put conditions on this kind of unconditional command?
The Message said it best: They’re looking for a loophole.
It’s harder to love and easier to hate. It will cost you more to be compassionate, and nothing at all to walk on by like it is not your problem. You’ll have to take stands, pay out of your own pocket, and just be brave enough to give a damn, rather than just show up for church on Sunday to check off your To Do list with a bunch of things you likely weren’t going to do anyway.
It’ll also make you uncomfortable when the Big Money party wants to tug at your Christianity to do the most un-Christian things, while promising they’ll make life easier for you.
But, if you truly want to be a neighbor, a sheep, one of Jesus’s chosen, you’ll have to make a stand if your religion supports making life harder for any other group to pave that path.
There is no way you can support policies that put money over mercy and say you’re doing the work of Christ. Saying you support a bill that gives tax breaks to the rich while cratering critical help to the Least of These is diametrically opposed to everything Jesus taught… IF you’re reading the parts in red.
And for all those who want to come for me saying it isn’t the government’s job to do the Work of Christ… there’s a Scripture for that, too. We’ll keep it with the Message, this time from Romans 13:
6-7 That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.
8-10 Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.
I think it’s interesting that Paul puts those two items together here to the Roman Christians, who were a new, minority religion at the time of his writing. That means the religion of the government was not Christian, and in fact Christians - as an offset to the Jewish religion - still faced persecution.
While America has no official religion, you gotta admit Christians have got a pretty sweet gig here. They get their holidays. “Under God” was put into the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag during the Red Scare, and we’ve just kinda kept it going. (The Pledge of Allegiance is likewise inclusive, with Liberty and Justice for All. These are not new concepts, friends.)
That Freedom of Religion First Amendment does way more for Christians than any other religious group in America, making Christians the least persecuted group in the country. We haven’t even had an openly identified atheist president in all our 248 years, with all presidents at least affiliated with Christianity in upbringing at least.
But Christians still don’t want to pay their taxes and maintain/expand their exclusivity. Interesting.
And yet, despite the political climate way back then, Paul directed the Early Christians there to subject themselves to the government to keep order and live in peace, paired with the importance of love.
It’s like he read the Beatitudes or something.
In the NIV version, it repeats the term “neighbor,” when reiterating that it is love that fulfills the law:
9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Sounds to me that if you lead with love, that list of Don’ts gets a lot easier. If you love someone, it’s a lot harder to do the bad stuff to them. If you turn your Enemy into your Neighbor, you care about them. Want to take care of them. Do not delight in their misery. Will sacrifice on their behalf, just to ease their suffering, because your heart cannot bear any cruelty or injustice.
One might say it’s Christ-like.
But let’s be real. Leading with love is hard for us regular humans. Turning the other cheek, giving to someone who stole from you, forgiving, not judging, being merciful and sacrificing yourself to aid someone who has far less - it’s all the hard work of doing what Jesus had done. I know I struggle even as a lifelong Christian, whose liberal Democrat tendencies lend more to the tree-hugging, Can’t We All Get Along pacifist variety.
Radical views I learned from a Radical cat named Jesus way back in the day, ironically.
And He believes in us so much he said we would do these works even greater than He had done. All it’s going to cost you is to open up your mercy to everyone, instead of reserving your best self for a specific little clique that Jesus Himself was never even a part of.
My Jesus leads with love. Is this harder? Of course. Do I fail at it like the human I am? Absolutely. But I’m not looking for a loophole so that when God speaks to me, I can nope right out of the hard stuff and blame God for my inadequacies.
When I preach to you the Least of These means everyone, it costs me something, too. I know I’m going to have to answer my own failure to this standard when I come before Jesus. It would be so much easier to say hey yeah, you didn’t really mean THOSE folks, right?
But the whole point of Christianity is to become more like Christ. That is the point of the path, which is narrower for a reason. Find Christ in your actions, and if you can’t… maybe it’s time to open up the book and read the parts in red again.
Find the love.
Not the loophole.