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Poor and underprivelaged people have been around for a long time. Jesus even says they will always be with us as long as we are in a fallen world. However, this was not Jesus dismissing the poor and homeless… even though some may say so. For one, Jesus was homeless. Even more plain is the amount of care you see Jesus and His disciples showing people who could not help themselves; from the paralyzed to the widows.
In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about whether He would only go after the rich and famous, the popular, and the powerful… which we Christians can get caught up in just like everybody else (when was the last time you saw a guest speaker at a Christian conference who was a “nobody” and not some famous name?) Jesus offers His salvation and His grace to everyone, rich or poor, but “those who have a lot” often don’t feel like they need Jesus. “Having a lot” could mean you are sucessful in business, are popular at school, have rich parents, or maybe you are just very respected at church. God spent a lot of time bringing salvation and comfort to the people who didn’t have much, and so should we. Jesus’ parable above talks about the king (Jesus!) sending his servants (us!) out to go and invite the people on the street corners to a royal feast. What common person with little in their pockets and less in their stomach would refuse that?!? Now, the less-fortunate people in this parable fall into lots of categories, not just poor and homeless. Here are a few to think about:
- Jesus was mainly talking about the Gentiles (non-Jews) - in our day, we would probably think of these people as non-Christians, since we are mostly Gentiles ourselves and we are a part of the Church!
- Jesus was probably also referring to “sinners” - the people with less-than-perfect reputations and obvious sins in their life.
What challenges me about this is a very simple question. Simple to understand, but not easy to answer: are we, as Jesus’ servants, going to the people on the corners and in the streets… or are we just hanging around with other servants? For those who were sitting on their street corner, putting up with another hungry day of being unnoticed, being invited to the feast certainly changed their lives forever. The parable-story Jesus told is about the hope of Salvation. For those of us who have been “invited” and enjoy Jesus’ grace and salvation - we have truly been rescued. How many less-fortunate people do we walk past each day who need to be:
rescued from their ordinary lives? 
