Pure and Faultless Religion

A couple of days ago some family friends of mine got home from Honduras. I had been watching their house while they were gone so when they got home I went to give them back the keys. While I was there (I should say that the wife is a Christian and the husband is an atheist.) they said that while they were in Honduras the interacted with some of the poorest people they have ever met or seen in their lives. And they saw countless missions groups down there going to, “Save the people of Honduras” she said she saw group after group getting up and leading worship and building churches and ‘proclaiming the word/good news/gospel’ to the masses. And she said while all this was going on she watched kids starving to death and watched their parents dying of aids. Struck by the churches ability to ignore the glaring and immediate needs of the Honduran people she asked one of the missionary teams why they focused on spreading the good news and not on caring for the needs of the people. The response was disturbing; “We know that these kids are going to starve to death and we know their parents are going to die from aids or other opportunistic diseases, so the one thing we can do is make sure they go to heaven.” That to me doesn’t sound like the good news Christ proclaims. And it doesn’t sound like the abundant life He offers in John 10:10. That to me sounds like a half-assed gospel focused more on numbers of converts than on caring for the members of our savior’s body. I think this is a huge issue in modern missions and a clear area of needed improvement. In all honesty I think, and this may sound heretical but oh well, we should throw out missions trip all together from the churches bag of tricks. However I think that we as a body must try to meet the needs of the world and must tell people about this Christ who has worked his way into all of our lives. I think (in my humble opinion) we need to look to serve trips. A serve trip goes for one reason, to love people the way Christ calls us to, and to meet the needs that we are able to meet. And in doing this I think that people are lead to ask us what are motivation is, and in that question we are able to explain the good news that has changed our lives. We have a God that looks at the Church and commissions us to care for those who can’t care for themselves. What good is giving someone the good news, and letting them die from unmet needs. Yes, they will meet us in Heaven, but is that enough? I don’t think so. I think the verses that follow are clear to point that out. Like I wrote in earlier posts, I think that caring for the poor is a requirement for Christians and not just something that we should consider doing or something some of us are called to do. This is a necessity and is an integral part of our walk with Christ. Look at verse 45 of Matthew 25, and I think it’s clear that we aren’t supposed to only care for those that end up in front of us. That doesn’t seem like an excuse. We must seek these people out and show them the holistic life saving and soul saving gospel of Christ.
James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Matthew 25: 34-46 34 "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' 40 "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.' 41 "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 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 look after me.' 44 "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?' 45 "He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' 46 "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."