Some gospel songs include lyrics that refer to the joy we would experience upon seeing Jesus after we die. But a passage in Matthew 25 reminds us that waiting until our transition from this life to see Jesus might mean missing opportunities to see Jesus in our midst right now.
I:n this passage Jesus teaches us what we do for “the least of these” is what we are doing for Jesus himself. It’s the logical extension of the commandment that he left us: to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That love becomes a circle—loving God, loving other people and loving ourselves is deeply interdependent; you can’t love God without loving your neighbor, you can’t love your neighbor without loving yourself, you can’t love yourself without loving God.
So, of course you can’t say you love Jesus but be unwilling to care about what happens to people who are struggling with the basics of survival. To be honest, I struggle with the practical implications of what that means—does it mean I have to give to every beggar I encounter on the street? It certainly means I have to recognize and honor both their humanity and the divine that is in them, that part of them that makes them a part of Jesus himself.
As I write this, there are news reports that extra funding for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) designed to help people get through the economic chaos of the COVID pandemic is about to expire. It means that a significant percentage of the 42 million Americans who receive SNAP benefits will see their benefits sharply reduced, and thus their ability to feed themselves adequately will become much harder. Many Republican policymakers see this as a good thing, and would like to see this go further, believing that government has little if any obligation to make sure that its citizens are adequately fed.
Never mind that the entire federal SNAP program could be funded out of the wealth of the nation’s 728 billionaires without drastically affecting their lavish lifestyles. The point is that there is abundant wealth at our disposal to ensure that no one in our midst goes hungry, is unhoused, or is without adequate clothing. The only problem is that when we see people struggling to eat, find shelter, warm clothing, or safety and asylum at our borders, we are not seeing Jesus in our midst.