Matthew 25 ChallengeSample

Matthew 25 Challenge: REACH
by Wayne Taylor

CHALLENGE: Reach out to someone who is going through a difficult time.

In the old movie “The Wind and the Willows”, a man - sick, cold and poor - found refuge in a barn and was awakened by some children poking him with a stick. “Who are you?” they asked repeatedly. Startled, he blasphemed, “Jesus Christ!” The children believed him. So they treated him as they would have treated Jesus. They visited him in the barn, brought him warm blankets, soup to strengthen him in his illness and simply the warmth of their love and acceptance. They reached out and in the smallest of things helped him out of the prison of self-loathing, sickness and poverty. 

I love this story, but would love it more if when the man had revealed his name as, Wayne Taylor, my name, or your name, the children would have responded in the same way: with love and care, reaching out. Jesus in the parable of Matthew 25 does not give us the option of treating Him in one way and everyone else in another way. In fact, He invites us to respond to those who are sick and imprisoned by life or physical walls in the simplest things of care and a visit.

This response is not done in a calculating way; not "what’s in it for me?",  or wondering who is watching. It is done because when we are dealing with a fellow human being, we are dealing with someone of immense worth and value. Someone made in the very image of Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ Himself.  So, just reach out! Just reach out to someone in need of care or a visit. 

Now it may be that as you read this you find yourself sick and in prison, a real prison of high walls or a prison of circumstances. It may be that you are asking, “So where is God in all of this?” As Jesus speaks this parable, my sense is that Jesus takes upon Himself our sickness and sits with us in our prison. He invites us to take His outstretched hand and follow Him toward health and freedom. Jesus reaches out to us and bids us to simply take His hand. I don’t know what that looks like for everyone, but I do have faith that when we take the outstretched hand of Jesus He will make Himself known. The hand of Jesus may come from an unlikely source, the hand of a stranger, another human being.