As I reflect on a past visit to the nursing home, so many things are running through my mind. Most prevalent, however, is the futility of our gracious smiles, amens, and friendly handshakes when it’s in the confines of a church three times a week. Church is fine, but it should be the icing on the cake, a training place and only a mere portion of our servanthood.
The true commission is where you’d least expect it – there are no padded pews, no resounding music or no one dressed in their Sunday best. I discovered “Go ye” in a place where the stench is nauseating, the clothing is tattered with food-stained robes, and the cries of loneliness are constant echoes, however distressing it seems.
Am I wonderful because I went? No. I had to rely on the Jesus in me who was quite used to this. If He could touch society’s dreaded leper, could I not hug a lady, though she smelled. How much more did I smell with the stench of sin when I asked him to be Lord. Did He reject me?
When this aged lady, wrinkled and gray, reached out an arthritic-eaten hand, could I reject her? As I prayed with our tears meeting upon one another’s cheek, I didn’t do it, the Jesus in me did and I realized where true servanthood really was. As I was doing it..."unto the least of these," I was doing it unto Him. The church didn’t see me, just one little elderly lady and when I saw her…I saw Him.
