I’m working at the hostel this morning on a slightly overcast day in Amsterdam. Reception. This usually includes a variety of tasks, including checking people into the hostel, making reservations, canceling reservations, organizing things, etc. Typical things you would expect from a hostel. As you can see, sometimes there is a bit of time when you either can’t find anything to do, or would rather go on Facebook and see how your friends from home are doing than, say, refill the printer with vouchers or make sure that all of the cleaners I supervise have beds for the next 3 or 4 days reserved.
Oftentimes I get very caught up in the busyness of working at a hostel that I forget why I’m here. Example… today, at the start of my shift a man missing an eye stumbles into the hostel and stops at the reception desk where I’m sitting. He looks at me and smiles, asks me my name – and at first, I’m hesitant to say. I think things like, “This guy looks like a creep. Do I really want to tell him anything about me?” But God caught me on that, and suddenly the verses from Matthew 25 come pouring into my mind and I’m convicted of my own self-centeredness. I respond a bit grudgingly, but gradually, I feel more comfortable as he talks to me about who he is. His name is Angelo. He lives here in Amsterdam, struggles to pay his rent also to work because he’s half-blind. His remaining eye is a lazy one that drifts around. At first glance, I thought this man was so strange that I shouldn’t speak to him. This is the result of society upon me, upon all of us when we ignore the woman smoking a joint on the corner with her eyes sunken in, or the person missing a leg, or an arm. The teenager with cancer missing all of his hair and turned pale. The old man who smells like a combination of booze and body odor, and also smells like it has been weeks that he has gone without a shower. The overweight man missing an eye…
He has a name. They all have names. And guess what? They all have stories. Especially as a follower of Christ, I often do a terrible job at recognizing His calling on my life. I am no better. I was blessed with a family that loved me and was able to provide for me – the fact that I am ‘normal’ by this world’s standards is not because I am any better of a person. We do Christ more than a grave disservice by ignoring the outcast. According to Christ Himself, by denying any of these people, we deny our Savior himself, the very one who died for us! We, who are so imperfect and so often void of real love that isn’t based on some sort of self-reward, have been loved beyond what we can even imagine so that our selfishness, our pride, our inability to love can be overcome and swallowed up by Love Himself… as light exterminates all darkness when it comes in contact, so does life everlasting overcome death of all forms.
“And the King will say to them, ‘Depart from me… for I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. 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 visit me.”
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?’
He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ ” Matthew 25:41-46
Let us open our eyes and see the truth. Let us open our eyes enough to see a begging Jesus who is without food or friendship. Let us open our hearts enough to offer not only a few euros or dollars, but offer a chance for real relationship to grow. Learn to see Jesus in the crack addict whom everyone ignores – her life of being ignored only leads to a deeper need to escape. Learn to see Jesus in the man missing an eye. Learn to see Jesus in the smelly old man. Jesus was smelly too.
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him,
nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised,
and we esteemed Him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered Him stricked by God, smitten by Him and afflicted.
But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon His shoulders
and by His wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:2-5
“Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to love strangers, for by doing so some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves are suffering.” Hebrews 13:1-3
We are doing a lousy job of recognizing the price that Jesus paid for us if we only follow His command to “love your neighbor as yourself” when that neighbor is socially acceptable, firm in their beliefs, and able to pay their bills. When we turn our eyes away from those in need – regardless of what we believe about whether or not they got themselves into that situation – we are missing the point of the gospel. “For I came not for the healed, but for the sick,” says Christ. We look and we see Jesus spending time with the outcast of society, showing them that they were indeed worthwhile despite what identity the world has given them based on the wrong choices they made or circumstances they were born into.
If we dare to call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, we ought to look to Him and start following what He did. Enough sitting in the pews where our social world doesn’t extend beyond youth groups and the four walls of our churches… It’s time that we live up to the calling that Christ has given us – and maybe then the rest of the world will see who Christ really is. Let’s break free from Christianity and turn back to the simple root of following Jesus. They are not the same.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3-10
The end of the story is this. God awakened a desire in me to spend time just speaking to this man who had nothing. As I spoke with Angelo, God asked me to give him my only two euros so that he could take the tram to his house instead of walking in the rain. He didn’t ask for it, but if he had, I think that God would have done the same. And when I gave him that small bit of money (this was not my choice, but simply listening to what the Holy Spirit was asking of me), he looked at me and got tears in his one eye, took my hand and began to praise the Father for what I had done. He prayed over me with such passion and prophecy that I have never felt or seen before, mentioning things in my heart that needed prayer that even I had failed to recognize, let alone ask for help for from others.
I saw Jesus in this man. And we have the opportunity to meet Jesus every day with every opportunity we are given to serve those whom we normally we would not. I urge you to sacrifice your time to build friendships with the people who don’t have it all together. Step outside the confines of the church, or your suburban neighborhood, and reach out to those who have nothing. Put aside your judgments and recognize the simple truth: we all are humans, in need of love. Regardless of what you believe in terms of a ‘religion,’ I think we can all agree on this. But for those of us who have decided to respond to Christ’s call on our lives, I urge you to respond fully and radically; pray for the ability to see other people as God sees them, and to love them as Jesus loved them.
it is only by Love that we will be set free. 