The Look

Luke 6:30
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyonetakes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

          In Luke's account of Jersus' Sermon on the Mount, he includes one of the most challenging scriptures in the Bible.  "Give to everyone who asks you...."  Our national economy has sent multitudes with their brown cardboard signs out onto our street corners.  How do we decifer who really needs a handout and who needs to get a job?  How do we decide the right amount from our wallets to place into outstretched hands?  How do we trust that our offerings will buy life necessities instead of prolong addictions?
          Questions like these may have been what prompted the rich young man to ask Jesus in Luke 10:29, "And who is my neighbor?"  A paraphrase of Jesus' convicting response: "Anyone you see who is in need is your neighbor."
          If you think our street corners here are full of beggars, you should visit South Africa!  While there in 2011, almost all of our transportation was provided by Christians from the Johannesburg Church of Christ.  We noticed that they took this scripture in Luke 6 quite literally.  If they were stopped at an intersection long enough to get their car window down, something would pass from their hands into the hands of the needy. 
          Some carried stashes of coins; some had pieces of fruit at the ready, or individual bags of peanuts and raisins.  This advance preparation made them able to "give to everyone who asked."  It freed them from consiciences wrestling with judgments and the conjuring of rationalizations required on American street corners.
          I was reminded of walking alone in downtown Chicago and being approached by a scruffy-looking man who asked, "You don't happen to have a sandwich in that purse, do you?"  I did not. I did, however, happen to have brought along a cereal bar for my own consumption later.
          As I handed him this small offering, I was struck by the desperate gratitude in his eyes.  It was that look, more than his effusive expressions of gratitude that penitrated my heart.  It made me think of how often Jesus must have elicited exactly that same look in the eyes of people he healed or fed or encouraged.  It must have made the looks of contempt and scepticism and malice more bearable as he walked on this earth.
          Increasingly, it seems we need the encouragement of those same looks to persevere in a culture that is progressively looking with derision on Christianity.  Maybe this is not the highest motivation for benevolence, but it is surely one of its tangible benefits!