Intimacy: Who do you love? - Do you choose to love people of different socio-economic “classes”?

 

FOCUS SCRIPTURE

Luke 14:12-14; Galatians 3:27-29

DAILY BYTE

A while back, I went to speak at a school in a township around Durban, and while on my way driving there from the Berea, I realized with shock that I had not left the Berea in over two months. I had done my shopping, my recreating, my working, my worshipping, my everything within about a six block radius. I didn’t have to leave - everything I needed physically was at my disposal. Of course, there’s plenty that God wants us to do and become exactly where we are. And yet, when I moved into another area, my awareness of the difference in peoples’ life circumstances was heightened. I realized that I had been spending a whole lot of time associating only with people who are just like me - somewhere in the upper middle of the socio-economic spectrum.

Likewise, I attended a workshop at the home of a wealthy person in another part of Durban and realized I had not been in such company for a long time. My eyes immediately began to judge, as they touched on the mounds of expensive things.

I claim to love everyone – to have wealthy friends and poor, and yet, in these instances I was shocked by how little close contact I truly had with people who live in different life circumstances from my own. Of course, we encounter a vast spectrum of wealth and poverty in our own neighbourhood every day. At each traffic light we are reminded by the homeless and young boys begging for change and rubbish that we live in a society where there is a vast disparity between poverty and wealth. And it is hard to live in this place. It is hard to be confronted with that reality constantly, no matter which side of the spectrum we’re on. And so we turn our eyes. We avoid the stares of people who want and also the stare of people who have more than we do. We give to the Poor Fund and work with those who have more money than we do, but how often do we truly choose to make these people our friends? What does it mean not only to agree to live in the same community together but also actively to love each other?

In the scripture from Luke for today, Jesus reminds us that true love is lived in humility, choosing not to place ourselves higher or lower than any other person but choosing to sit around a table and share meals and life with those who live differently. How rarely we open our tables with intimate and radical hospitality in this way – even though we know that it is often at the table where the grittiness and joy of our lives are shared and where we learn to love each other more deeply.

And in Galatians, we are reminded that no matter what our social situation, we are all one, bonded together through the love of Christ. Surely, even though it is difficult, we must be able to learn from this example how to broaden our ways of loving to include those who are both wealthier and poorer than we are. Surely if we do this, we will become less judgmental and understand more fully what the love of God looks like. Surely.

Questions for reflection:

1. In what ways are you choosing to love those within your neighborhood and beyond who are in a different socio-economic bracket than you? 
2. If you found that you could not answer the previous question, or if you found that you would like to deepen the response you gave, what practical steps might you take to reach out lovingly to both the rich and the poor?

PRAYER

Lord, teach us to share a love that reaches through socio-economic circumstances deep into your heart. Help us lay aside our judgment, weariness, and complacency, instead taking up your compassion. In Jesus’ name we pray this. Amen.