25 September 2016 - at our door

[ Today's Readings ]

Jesus is calling us to compassion and love. We get preoccupied with comfort until it is totally out of control. The ivory beds, and couches upon which we lie, the calves and lambs, we eat, our music and festivities get carried away. They begin to act as insulation from things God wants us to carry about.

They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils;
yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!

There is nothing inherently wrong with the comforts. There is nothing wrong with purple garments and dining sumptuously until we begin to neglect the poor man at our door. The scraps of our tables would be enough to satisfy him. And we can do better than scraps and still live lives with sufficient comfort.

In order to compete well for the faith and lay hold of eternal life we can't allow ourselves to become so lost in our own heads that we can't see the problems of the world. These are problems which God wants to solve using us. If we look we see people all around us physically and spiritually hungry. God gives us whatever physical and spiritual goods we have that they may be shared. Let us not withhold them.

until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ
that the blessed and only ruler
will make manifest at the proper time,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,
and whom no human being has seen or can see. 
To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.

He is the one who loves the poor. He is the one who sustains the father and the windowless. He is the one we profess to serve. Let us serve him, then, with hearts full of praise.