-Mother Teresa
Yesterday I discussed the Bible’s frequent descriptions of Jesus coming to those in need and reaching out His hands and touching them. How does this make us feel in today's politically correct world? What do we make of a man who was God in flesh who when He finally arrives on this earth He doesn't use His power to destroy armies or conquer nations or gather great wealth. Instead He humbles Himself and become a servant, granting mercy on the meek, the lame, and the rejected. He championed their cause. He reach out into their world and touched them. This touch wasn't symbolic but was a real, physical human contact.
But what, if anything, does that mean for us? So what! Jesus touched people. Big deal.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
-Phil 2:5-8
We are as Christians to be like Jesus. Out goal should be to serve as He did on this earth. We should to then reach out and touch others. Touch, as I have blogged before is so vital to human interaction. Dispite a society of sterile, bleached clean fear of relational outreach, as those in Christ's image, we must keep reaching out, keep making contact, and keep touching the needy.
It’s important to not only look at what He did but also whom He did it. Jesus Christ, the living embodiment of God Almighty reached out and touched blind beggars. He touched them and gave them sight. He went to lepers, those society had cast away as broken and useless, people who where no longer seen as part of humanity but now viewed as creatures to be shunned. Jesus defied social mores and sought these people out, reached out his hand and touched their ailing skin. He forgave them, healed them and gave them new lives. He was amazing.
If we are to be Christ-followers we must follow Jesus’ lead. We can’t just give lip service to the causes and actions that Jesus ardently pursued during His ministry. Our tithing and benevolence are not enough. We are to literally take on the appearance of Jesus. We are to find His heart and His teachings and do these things. We are to love everyone regardless of their past, their health, the skeletons hidden in their closets. We are to be that Light of the world that Father-God shot down that first Noel oh so long ago. We are to do the things He did here in our day and age.
Mother Teresa 1910-1997
We all know the name Mother Teresa. It has come to mean someone who lives a selfless life helping others. But the more I study the diminutive woman in blue-rimmed sari, the more I see an example of how we are to live. I see a reflection of Jesus.
As a young nun in India, she was assigned a job teaching geography in a Catholic school. One day she was riding a bus through the streets of Calcutta. Stricken by what she saw, she could no longer overlook the hoards of suffering people crowding the streets. Everywhere there were the lame, the blind, the sick, the malnourished, and the dying huddled in allies begging for scraps from unmerciful passersby. She felt the Lord calling to her. This was to be her mission, the great vocation of her life. She returned to the school and asked for immediate reassignment to head into the streets, to touch the needy. Over the next five decades, Mother Teresa turned her life into an offering for Christ by serving the less fortunate. She started her own ministry called the Sisters of Charity whose mission is to devote their life to serving the poor without accepting any material reward in return. Centers to treat lepers, the blind, the disabled, the aged, and the dying were soon opened worldwide. She reached out and touched the needy. She never strayed from her mission and became the greatest humanitarian of the 20th century.
"Mother Teresa has opened for mankind the portals of heaven and shown us the Heart of God. Jesus is saying to her, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father. I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was alone, forsaken, sick, abandon, poor, heartbroken, and desolate and you took me in. What you did to the least of these My Brethren, you did to me.’ Mother Teresa had a Mother’s heart, great and strong, and courageous enough to embrace the whole world. She will not soon be forgotten. Her reward will be great in Heaven. We pray for her and for those who follow her, that her work may go on. She has done something beautiful for God."
-Sr. M. Raphael, PCPA, Our Lady Of Angels Monastery, Birmingham, Ala.
In Mother Teresa we see someone wholly committed to the Lord. She transformed her life into an offering for the Lord. She walked as Jesus did. She traveled humbly and found those in need and reached out a literally touched them. She wasn't content with a passive mission. She wanted to be the hands and feet of Jesus in her world. And with God's blessed help she was.
We do not have to become nuns. We do not have to take vows to follow anyone but Jesus. But we should open our hearts to the transforming power of Christ. And friends, that happens when we stop being the center of our own universe. When we serve others in Christ's name, His Spirit works in us and through us. We become like wet clay on the potter's wheel. We are molded and transformed. As we focus on giving and not taking, as we focus on helping and not collecting, we begin to live that Bible verse. We become the image of Jesus.
"You and I, we are the Church, no? We have to share with our people. Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing.
Jesus made it very clear. Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me. Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little child, you receive me"
-Mother Teresa
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