Sometimes it’s the simple, practical things we fail at, and often it’s because we’re so busy making big plans to do great things.
In a parable in Matthew 25, it’s those who cared for “the least of these” to whom Jesus says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
In another parable in Luke 14 a man planning the feast had – like all of us would – invited those he knew: his friends, his relatives, and his rich neighbors.
Jesus gives this instruction: “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
How odd it would be for us to plan a party and invite people we don’t know who are both disabled and down on their luck. What would such a feast look like? How many awkward moments would there be?
One theologian calls such action “disinterested goodness” – something done without the expectation of favor or service in return. When you do something for someone who clearly cannot pay you back, it tends to make your motives quite clear.
Two thousand years later, “the least of these” still exist: the hungry and thirsty, the unwelcomed stranger, the needy, the sick, the disabled, and the incarcerated have not disappeared. And they’re still in need of care. When is the last time we stopped to care for them?
Keep making big plans for accomplishing great things, but remember to take time to do the little things too. Someday we might discover that the little things were actually the big things all along.
