What Will You Do?

Many in the Church are praying for our pews to be full and that there will be a great revival in the Church.  Believers are praying for all types of people to begin filling the Church including those that are poor, hurting, broken, addicted, spiritually blind, in other words, people like those in our community.  My question to the Church is, what are we going to do when those that we have been praying for begin to show up at our place of worship?  Yes, we say that are churches are open to everyone but do we really mean it?  What if they have a bad odor about them, have spent time in prison, been a prostitute, or God forbid, are involved in homosexuality?  What will our reaction be?  Will it be Christ like or will it be like some folks who told me I had a choice between them or mentally and physically challenged men from a group home? 

If the disciples are any example of how we will do with the multitude then we might not fare well when the least of these are among us.  Jesus had been preaching to the five thousand (sounds like a successful evangelistic event) and the day was done with no food or lodging in the immediate area.  The disciples told Jesus to send the multitude away.  Imagine, telling Jesus what to do.  (I might be guilty of that one on occasion.)   It can be argued that the disciples just did not have enough faith to feed the five thousand but I would like for us to consider another plausible explanation.  What if they just did not want to bothered with the responsibility of meeting the needs of the multitude?  They would have been inconvenienced, it had been a long day and they were tired, they might have had to give out of their own pockets, and maybe they were satisfied that they and their family had what they needed from Jesus.  In other words, my four and no more.  In many ways the modern day church in the United States has abdicated its' responsibilities to the least of the these and put the responsibility on the shoulders of the government.  It is easier to pay taxes or give to those serving the poor rather than getting directly involved with those that are not like us.  We might even be spiritually righteous and say that they got in to that position because of bad choices so let them get out of it.  If I can make it so can they mentality.  One of my all time favorite reasons for not helping the poor is that it is not my calling.  I even once had someone say to me, brother Carl, (watch out) you will be giving out more in resources than you will be bringing in and you cannot grow a church like that.  We have all kinds of reasons, just like the disciples, to send the multitude away.  I would argue that Church is anointed for this very thing (Luke 4:18-19).  As we are open to this anointing we will have the opportunity to meet needs of those that Jesus went to the cross for so that they may have life and life abundantly.  No more excuses, what will you do when the multitude is before you.  So you will know, I did enjoy worshipping with my friends and brothers from the group home for a long time until they moved to the other side of town.