Where Your Treasure Is

I met a young, homeless vet tonight.  Every other Friday, on payday, my little family takes the 4 minute drive to our favorite little restaurant in Montclair where we order Ellie macaroni and cheese and she ends up eating all of our salmon, dancing outside to the semi-decent busker, and drinking the same bottle of wine we always say we should buy in a case since we buy the same bottle TWICE A MONTH.   Though it was a little chilly tonight, we chose to eat outside where kids were playing and guitars were singing, and tonight, where Zach sat with his sign.

It read:

I'm a Vet.  Two tours in Iraq.  Homeless.  Can you help me?

Not asking for money, clothing or shelter.  It was his last sentence that struck me.

Can YOU help me?

As you know, I've recently been challenged with direct Biblical application.  Love God.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  It's not enough to just know theologically what this means- not enough for it to resonate soundly and clearly in my heart so that it breaks in a thousand pieces.  It's not enough for me to feel, genuinely the weight of these words.  I must, MUST put them into practice.

"But, what if he's not really homeless?," Whispers my human brain, "What if he doesn't really need help at all? What if he's pretending?  What if he's lying? "

And then I remembered this:

"Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  Sell your possessions and give to the needy.  Provide yourself with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, your heart will be also."  (Luke 12)

I want to treasure Jesus.  I want every cell, every thought, every nerve ending in my body to desire His delight.  I want to do as he tells me.  When I try to insinuate circumstances to circumvent serving, I am not doing my job- I am trying to do His.

That passage doesn't tell me to find the most worthy, the most upstanding, the most loyal, the most honest folks who just so happened to be down on their luck and then and only then should I dignify the situation with my help.

I am so glad Jesus didn't respond to me the same way I respond to his people sometimes.  With all of these unrighteous expectations of them, ultimatums and conditions.

He told me not to worry about it, "sell all my stuff", and give it to people who need it.   Sometimes I think the selling of things is not as literal as it sounds-  sometimes, I have to give pieces of myself away in order to help someone Jesus's called me to help.  Like the rational pieces of me that tell me that this person who has hurt me in so many ways doesn't deserve my help.

Loving your enemies is serious business.  That means the ones who have hurt you the most.  On purpose.  The ones who have lied to your face, the ones who have broken your trust or your heart.

It doesn't matter if after tonight,  Zach walked back to his Audi and an apartment in the suburbs.  It wasn't my job to figure out if he was worthy of my time.  The point was, Jesus loves him- whoever he is and I am called to do the same.  Because He did it for me.

We had a nice chat with Zach, gave him what we had and promised to be by tomorrow with some lunch and assistance in finding a job to secure the room he has been trying to rent.

Love God.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I want to treasure Jesus, not my own ideas of right and wrong, not my perceptions of worthiness or forgiveness and it's so much simpler and more difficult than I ever thought possible.