Hiddenness: Remembering the Blessed Forgotten
Hiddenness: Remembering the Blessed Forgotten.
God delights in hiding things, such as people, ministries, private places, and even His Word. It is His privilege to conceal matters, and in fact, God’s glory is shown when He keeps certain things hidden. When the Lord conceals things, we honor Him for it and acknowledge His wisdom in doing so. (refer to Proverbs 25:2).
In many ways, the whole point of the Christian faith seems to be about revealing things, exposing truths that are a matter of life and death. Apparently, God loves to make things obvious… Sending His heavenly Son to earth to take on flesh for all to see is a perfect example of His desire to reveal something, namely His love and forgiveness. The incarnation was hardly a hidden event. Nor were His followers who were called to be lights of the world, shining out there for all to see what salvation and redemption look like. The light of God’s love is not to be hidden under a bushel but uncovered, shining around the world.
But it appears that God loves to keep some things hidden as well. In fact, hiddenness seems to be just as central to faith as revelation. Faith itself is hidden from the human senses and a matter of trusting in what we can’t even see or touch.
The Blessed Forgotten. Following the path of Christ, we are called to serve those who have been called “the blessed forgotten.” We seek out our culture’s untouchables, and we touch them. We seek out “the least, the lost and the left out” and end up ministering to Christ in His “distressing disguise.” We seek out those on the margins and bring them into the center of the page. And while we love those who are hidden from the love of others, we become hidden as well. When we are in the midst of the forgotten, we become forgotten as well.
Touching the Untouchable. Jesus was indiscriminate in His ministry of touch. He was not shy about who He touched, He was not particular or choosy. He fully knew how important touch was to those who were before Him, and so He was remarkably assertive with His touch. A divine distinctive in His ministry was that He loved to touch the untouchable. He literally embraced those who were overlooked, like women, children, or those who were considered unclean by the religious establishment. The perfectly Clean One was more than happy to connect with the unclean ones, those rejected by the religious leaders, those who were considered too impure to even worship in the Temple. The religious leaders were upset and befuddled by Jesus’ low standards in His social contact. Their list of those considered unclean, the people who were not to be touched for any reason, included: public sinners who rejected anything to do with Yahweh or the Temple; the sexually immoral such as the prostitute and adulterer; a dead body; anyone with leprosy or an infectious disease; a woman who was menstruating; tax collectors, because of their treasonous work and their daily contact with Gentiles; Samaritans, since they were considered half-breeds and not fully Jewish; the demoniac, because the person had an unclean spirit; Gentiles, because they weren’t a part of the Chosen People and didn’t obey Torah; shepherds, because of their daily contact with dirty sheep and the blood from the sheep’s scrapes and cuts. These people were all untouchables and considered outcasts from the Temple operations.
The Great Feast. In this parable (Luke 14:15-24), Jesus told a story about a rich man giving a big feast for his friends, only to have all his so-called friends reject his invitations. So the angry host decides on making a second guest list, right on the spot. He sends out invitations to precisely those who are never invited to anything, no less a huge feast like this one. He told His servants to invite everyone they can find, out in the highways and byways, everybody who wants to come to the feast. So through the door come the residents of the rescue mission and the local nursing home, then come the students from the school for the blind, and then those in creaky wheelchairs and aluminum walkers. The rejected host is now accepted as he opens the door wide to all who have been rejected or put on the margins, just like him. The host turns his anger into grace. But wait, the story isn’t finished. He finds that there’s still plenty of room for more, and he wants a full house! So he sends out even more invitations, this time asking complete strangers, the immigrants and the aliens, the homeless travelers, the far-flung foreigners, who probably need to be convinced that, yes, they really are invited to the feast. Soon enough the house is full and everyone is seated and the party can begin. When Jesus plans a party, we might be in for a few surprises. We’ll eventually be serving appetizers to scandalous outsiders and sexual offenders. We’ll be filling the water glasses of Roman sympathizers and religious half-breeds. We’ll be passing the salt to unclean lepers, political troublemakers, and sneaky thieves. We’ll be offering dessert to way-faring strangers who have no way to invite you back. We’ll be pouring coffee to a wonderful diversity of people, listening to a symphony of languages, and gazing upon a human rainbow of skin colors. And our serving table better be handicap accessible, because Jesus will go to every group home in town and hand out personal invitations to everyone who has a disability. With Jesus, the outcasts become the in-crowd. All those who live in the margins will find themselves smack in the middle of mercy and conviviality.
Open Grace. Remembering that questionable guest list for the Great Feast, think also about his unlikely guests of honor as revealed in Christ’s many experiences and stories. He wouldn’t hesitate to have dinner in Jericho with a compromising scoundrel who would cheat his own people. He gladly accepted being judged as a ”friend of sinners, a glutton and a wine drinker” by the religious establishment. He enjoyed the company of Matthew’s outcasts at a dinner in His honor. He’d want to celebrate with a lowly shepherd after finding his lost sheep. Or a humble woman who finally found her long-lost coin. Perhaps most surprising of all, he would have no problem hosting a village feast to honor a runaway son who just squandered his whole inheritance. The bigger the screw-up, the better the feast. The more humble or lost the person, the more extravagant the party. Jesus was one big welcome mat, intentionally inviting all the undeserving into his life of love and joy and forgiveness.
The Classic Physical Works of Mercy. These are the physical Works of Mercy expected of Christian believers a we seek to follow Jesus and serve those people whom He served. These Physical Works are outlining acts of mercy that relieve physical suffering. They are accepted as revealing love-in-action, a model for how to treat others in the name of Jesus, and tangible ways of loving your neighbor who has physical needs. These Physical Works are practical ways of making Jesus visible in your corner of the world. This ancient list of Physical Works of Mercy is based on the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46. Jesus offers this story as His final words before the Passion. It appears He wanted to close His teaching ministry with a visceral punch to the gut, and He was successful in that. These merciful acts are not necessarily what is needed to be a Christian, but instead reveal if one is a Christian in the first place: Feed the Hungry; Give Drink to the Thirsty; Clothe the Naked; Give Shelter to the Homeless; Visit the Sick; Visit those in Prison.
The Classic Spiritual Works of Mercy. The traditional Spiritual Acts of Mercy listed below are works of kindness that are oriented towards a neighbor’s inner life of the spirit. They have been accepted, along with the Physical Works of Mercy, in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches: Admonishing those who have sinned; Teaching those who are untrained; Counseling those who have doubts; Comforting those who are sorrowful; Forgiving those who have been hurtful; Bearing patiently with others who wish you ill. Praying for those who are living and who are dead.
Following Jesus distinctly involves living a life in which we remember the Blessed Forgotten… touching the “untouchable,” inviting the “unworthy,” and seeking out the least, the lost and the left out. We ignore these actions of Christ to our peril, because by choosing to ignore them we will soon lose sight of the Jesus we claim to be following.
(The term “Blessed Forgotten” was coined by our saintly pastor in Detroit, Rev. Richard Bieber).