Throughout the history of the church, Christians have recognized that we cannot pray "Our Father" together on Sunday and deny bread to our brothers and sisters on Monday. But we live in difficult days. The hungry are not just hungry. Often they are also our enemies. Drug addiction and mental illness make many who are hungry hard to deal with. They threaten us. Other have been hungry for so long that they are angry, even at those of us who want to help. We worry about how to protect ourselves from them while at the same time feeling guilty for our complicity in their poverty. So we give to charities. And charities become the brokers for our compassion toward the poor.

The Problem with this is that we never get to know the poor. Though we have been made children of God together with them in Jesus Christ, we never sit down to eat with our hungry brothers and sisters. We never learn to see the world through their eyes. Many Christians are concerned about the breakdown of nuclear families (and rightly so), but we often just accept he breakdown of God's family. We live like teenagers in a high school cafeteria -- some of us eating at one table (our table), while other eat at another table (quite often, the soup kitchen's table). What we miss is the gift of God's new economy. And with it, our brothers and sisters on "the other side."

Source: Becoming the Answers to Our Prayers

      Archive of past Reflections, Below  

 

Date	Title
February 15, 2016	God's Economy
March 8, 2015	Christian Ideal
February 1, 2015	Jesus did not come to discuss the Law nor to challenge the Roman Empire
January 4, 2015	A Liberating Mission
August 7, 2011	Jesus is the Lord of all Things
July 3, 2011	Geographical Proximity
April 3, 2011	Are the Poor with us?
February 13, 2011	War & Peace
January 30, 2011	To Give or to Get?
December 19, 2010	Your Talent - God's Gift

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