Sheep and goats

I know, I wrote about Matthew 25 before, and that parable, before. I have not written about the time it became real to me.

It was a normal Sunday in the singles ward. We tried to keep an eye out for people. When I was worried about someone and didn't know what was going on, I would ask around, and Carlos was generally my best source. I think that day was in December, and being both cold and near Christmas made it seem worse. Of the people I asked about, one was sick and one was in jail.

With the sickness, it wasn't a disease requiring hospitalization or anything like that, but it had lasted about three weeks at that point and she was having a hard time shaking it. That's the kind of thing that can put your job in jeopardy, and make cleanliness and shopping difficult, as well as cooking for yourself if you do still have food. It can be lonely and isolating.

For jail, yeah, you don't expect to hear that at church, but there are a lot of ways and reasons that it can happen. I think I need to do a second post on that topic.

For right then, I just remember the knowledge washing over me that there are sick and in prison right now. There is nothing antiquated about that parable.

It had been easy to think about service in terms of people needing emotional support (which they do) or that sometimes they will need help moving or meals brought as appropriate, and maybe sometimes you bring cookies just as a little boost.

Nothing is wrong with any of those things, but they are predicated on lives that proceed fairly normally and that we know when things go on. That just isn't always true.

For someone sick or in prison, they drop out of sight. We won't know without looking. We may not realize how catastrophic a little thing can be.

The parable is pretty simple on the service, but there is a lot in there, and a lot that we may not think about, at least not without having it shoved in our faces.

Maybe over these next few weeks I will do some shoving. Maybe that will feel like a shove not due to the forcefulness that I use, but because taking the information in can be a push far outside of the comfort zone. I've been there.

However, for those who are sick and in prison and hungry and thirsty and naked and strangers, their discomfort is far worse, and there is nothing more critical to our salvation than how we respond to that.