I drove through North Portland today on my way to give blood. (They denied me; apparently the Mekong Delta in Vietnam is a no-go zone for malarial reasons. Whatever.) I began to see people who were not the same kind of people you would see in Tigard... they dressed differently, they walked differently. I actually found myself staring, realizing how poor they were and how, though I desired to be the same as they, seemed to be separated by an invisible wall. I drove on.
On Vancouver Drive, a woman and man were standing on the corner with a cardboard sign, the fourth one I had seen that day. The woman sagged against the traffic post, her eyes half-lidded from some drug that kept her bound by addiction. The man was weaving in and out of traffic with his pants halfway down and a glazed, drunken stupor surrounded him. I tried to look away. I couldn't. I wanted to do something. What could I do? I was in a car, and they were asking for money to buy the drugs that they were already under the influence of.
Am I being one of those people that drive by and ignore the least of these?
Jesus said, "When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you..."(Luke 14:12-14).
Dang it, Lord, I am a rich woman in a rich woman's bubble, when there is poverty running rampant in the streets of your city.
I want to throw a feast and treat beggars like kings, for that is the Kingdom of God in it's very nature. It doesn't matter if they never repay us or act the way we want them to. The only question now is, How do I begin?
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