Charity Starts at
Home?
The amount of times I have had people say this to me, and on
social media, and in other forums it’s getting tiresome. It’s used when I talk about helping refugees
and asylum seekers, sadly Christian use it like scripture to me. It not!
Scripture that is!
Can I ask what do we mean by this, where is home, your
little house, your 2.5 children, your street, your country? What are you talking about?
I supposed I can almost forgive those using the phrase who
would not claim to be Christians, or Followers of Jesus, but for those who make
both those claims I do have a problem.
Jesus tells us what is commonly called the story of the Good
Samaritan. Of course at the time when Christ was walking around in Israel, now
self respecting Jew would ever go to Samaria, as the woman at the well said to
Jesus, when he asked for a drink of water, “you’re a Jew and you ask me for a
drink of water don’t you know that Jews have no dealings with the
Samaritans”. Of course she did not know
that Jesus had previously said to his disciples, “I must go through Samaria”;
an amazing statement in of itself.
So let me counter that awful get out ‘charity start at home’
by reminding ourselves that Jesus said we are to love our neighbours, and then
follows that statement by asking us to decided who are our neighbours, and the
answer is not well pleasing to the people who never went to Samaria, as the
neighbour turns out to be one of them.
In Africa I was speaking to a group and telling the story of
the good Samaritan, I changed the story knowing that I was speaking to people
of one particular tribe, and I knew that they hated another tribe so I made in
my story the tribal member that helped a member of the hated tribe. People came up to after the meeting and said,
you should not have done that, people hear hate the people of that tribe, don’t
you know, err der! Maybe someone should have told Jesus that too.
Recently I had the privilege of going to a regular happening
at a local Synagogue, where well over a hundred refugees where being fed,
clothed, and financed by the local congregation, every nationality and religion
turning up for help. I asked who is
financing this and was told we are, at the moment its costing us about £30,000
a year.
The other very important point that I should make,
especially to those who say they are Christians, follower of Jesus, is that
Jesus commanded us to ‘love our enemies’.
So next time I say we need to be helping, caring for those
pushed out by war be it from Syria, Eritrea or wherever, I know that I have responsibility for my
family, but maybe that other statement of Jesus is apposite ‘that you should do
but this you should do also’ please don’t tell me Charity starts at home it’s
just plain the wrong response.
Adrian Hawkes
adrianhawkes.blogspot.com
W. 529
Edited Gena Areola
