February 8

NT – Being slightly Obsessive/Compulsive, I love checklists. I have a checklist for cleaning the house, doing yardwork, doing my paperwork, going on vacation. And for goodness sake, don’t ask my bosses Alfred and David about my love of checklists! I go a little overboard about them.
Which is why I have a love/hate relationship with our NT scripture today. Want to know who is in and who is out of the kingdom? – well, here is your checklist.
1. Feed the hungry
2. Give drink to the thirsty
3. Give clothes to the naked
4. Visit the sick
5. Visit the prisoners.
I love that there is a checklist. I just have a hard time with what is on it. For example, my friend Pearl (who also shares this dilemma with me) and I have tried for years to check #5 off our list. She thinks I have a toe up on her because I once picked my boyfriend up at the DeKalb County Jail where he had stayed all night on a drunk driving charge. I don’t think that counts especially since I refused to come get him at 2 AM and post bond for his sorry butt.
But how do you go about visiting prisoners? The one prisoner I know had a list of people he would see. He refused to put Pearl and me on it. So that was out.
And why prisoners? Where did that come from?
Well, in my Harpers Bible Dictionary, it says this comes directly from the prophets of the OT especially Amos and Micah. Micah 6:8 says “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Not a bad mission statement. And from Amos 5:24 “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.”
If you were in first century CE Palestine, you could go to prison for ANY number of things. Mouth off to the local Roman regiment leader – disappear. Don’t pay your taxes and won’t sell your daughter, off you go. And once you got there, it was up to your family to feed and clothe you. They didn’t do it, you starved to death. And we complain now about the restrictions on how the prisoners’ commissary accounts are handled! (FYI, if you have a loved one in prison in South Carolina, you cannot send them money via check or any money order EXCEPT postal money order. All else will be returned to you. And you can’t send them more than $50 as it would make them ‘too richy’. )
On the other hand, having loved one in a Palestine prison was horrible for your social status.
Thus, Jesus’ commentary on going to the prisons.
But does that still apply to us today? Do all of them? Is it enough to give to food pantries and drop off our used clothing at Goodwill? Somehow, I think Jesus would not think that was enough. And that is where my uncomfortableness with the list comes into play. See, I think we are supposed to feed the hungry personally. To be with them. To ease their burdens face to face. To show them empathy, not sympathy.
I think I don’t get to check much off of this checklist. I am afraid I am closer than I want to think I am to being a goat, rather than a sheep.