Yesterday, many of us read a story that Jesus told. People who helped marginal people were the heros. He says it was because they had helped him. But they are sure that they have never seen the glorious being that is in front of them at this moment, full of power, full of passion, full of authority. If they had seen THIS person, they would have noticed.

Jesus answers their question: When you helped all these other people, that counted as helping me.

But they weren’t doing anything special. They were simply living the kind of life that made sense to their heart. 

If someone they knew, someone they were connected to, someone who was connected to Jesus was hungry, they split their food. If someone they knew, someone they were related to, someone who was connected to Jesus, was sick, lying at home unable to get to the market or to get to the fields for harvest, they visited. A visit that offered relationship and refreshment and supplies. If someone they were related to but had never met was in town, they invited that person to a meal, or to spend the night-like family. If someone they were connected to needed a coat because the weather was changing, they shared theirs.

And they were aware enough of the needs of those people, they listened enough to the quiet clues, that they could help.

They were Sherlock Holmes enough to notice and Jesus enough to care.

They weren’t doing it to get something from God. They weren’t doing it to prove how spiritual they were. They were doing it because people were hungry and lonely.

It was the way they chose to live.

Of course, I think it’s worth mentioning that it’s a way of living that matches what Jesus did. And even is an extension of what he did.