Jesus, Compassion And JusticeSample

Re-framing Charity

Like everything else, Jesus wants to turn the way you do charity, ministry and missions upside-down. He wants to subvert the way you engage with the poor.

We already know from Luke 4:18 that Jesus came to earth to bring good news to the poor. Now, here in Luke 9, we catch a glimpse of the world-rocking way he intends to bring that good news.

Jesus is moved with compassion for the jostling mob of 5,000 unfed peasants. So his team suggests a common solution: “Send them away to find their own food and lodging.” (Luke 9:12) For many of us, already consumed by our own problems and concerns, this is also our response to the needs of the world.

But Jesus doesn’t buy this analysis or their solution. Instead, he asks his disciples to engage with the people and their need: “YOU give them something to eat,” he says directly in Luke 9:13. Yes YOU!

At this point, the disciples are incredulous, maybe even a little irritated. The needs are overwhelming and the resources so few: 5,000 guys and their families, all with rumbling tummies…

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the needs of a broken world?

The disciples respond in the way many of us would. They wonder if they are supposed to go and buy enough food for all these hungry people. In other words, they consider meeting the need themselves by using money to bring resources from outside the community, in a one-way act of benevolence. This is the traditional Charity Model and most of us are engaged in this form of charity in one way or another. It’s a good start, but Jesus wants to take us much deeper.

Luckily the disciples realize the limitations of this approach to meet the massive amount of need in front of them. And just as they run out of ideas, Jesus shows them a different way. A third way. 

He begins with the resources already available in the community - a pathetic handful of loaves and fish (Luke 9:13). And in this simple act of wisdom, he includes the poor (and the young!) and what they have to offer as part of the solution…

Then Jesus prays, inviting God to work. For without God’s Spirit – we are left with merely human effort. He asks his disciples to organize the people, forming temporary mini-communities, so that they can break bread together.

And the rest is history. A beautiful miracle of sharing and abundance takes place that meets the immediate need and revolutionizes the way the disciples will understand community transformation from that point on.

How might Jesus be calling you into a deeper relationship of sharing with those in need this week?