As I prepare for an outreach to the poor this week, I becoming more aware of MY inner poverty. Aside from the riches of Christ deposited in my life His Spirit, I'm bankrupt. As we will be inviting the "least of these" in our society to a lavish banquet at the Marriot in downtown Minneapolis, I believe Christ's invitation will be extended not just to the distinguished guests in God's downside up Kingdom, but to the volunteers, churches, and hotel workers as well.
Centuries ago, Soren Kierkegaard penned a beautiful paraphrasing of the great Invitation. This is wrecking my heart tonight..and I hope it has the same effect on you:
Come here to me, all you who labor and are
burdened, and I will give you rest. (Mt. 11:28)
Come here! – Amazing! There is nothing especially
amazing for a person in danger and in need of help to cry out,
“Come here!” And ordinarily the person who can truly be of
help must be searched for, and once he is found, it is often hard
to gain access to him. But the one who sacrificed himself, he is
the one who seeks out those who have need of help, he is him
self the one who goes about and, calling, almost pleading, says,
“Come here.” He does not wait for anyone to come to him. He
comes on his own initiative, for he is indeed the one who calls.
He offers help – and such help!
“Come here to me.” Amazing! Yes, human compassion does
indeed do something for those who labor and are burdened. We
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give charity, build charitable
organizations, and if the compassion is really heartfelt, we also
visit those who are downtrodden. But to invite them to come to
one, that is something that is not so easily done. It would mean
that your household and way of life would be completely
changed. To invite them in this way would mean to live together
in entirely the same manner. You would have to become poor,
sharing completely the same conditions as those who are dis
tressed and burdened.
This invitation can only be made by changing your own con
ditions, so they are in keeping with theirs, provided that your
life is not already like theirs, as was the case with him who says,
“Come here to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” This
he said, and those who lived with him saw that there was not the
slightest thing in his way of life that contradicts it. With the si
lent and faithful eloquence of action, his life expressed – even if
he had never said these very words – his life expressed, “Come
here to me, all you who labor and are burdened.”
“I will give you rest.” – Amazing! The words “Come here to
me” should be understood to mean,“Remain with me, I am that
rest.” It is not as it usually is, when the helper who says “Come
here” then says “Now leave” as he explains where the particular
help a person might need is to be found, where, for example,
the healing herb grows, or where there is a quiet place where he
can relax from his labor. No, the helper is the help. Oh, how
wonderful!
He who invites all and wants to help all treats the patient just
as if he intended it for each one individually, as if each patient
he had was his only patient. Ordinarily a physician must divide
his help among his many patients. A physician, of course, can
not sit all day with one patient, even less have all his patients at
home with him. How could he be all day with one patient with
out neglecting the others? The patient has the medicine the
physician prescribes and uses it whenever he needs to. The phy
sician checks on him occasionally, or the patient may visit the
physician. But when the helper is the help, he remains with the
patient all day long. How amazing, then, that this helper is the
very one who invites all to remain with him!
The invitation goes out, along highways and down
alleys. Yes, it goes out even to the path that is so lonely that only
one solitary person walks it, so that there is only one track, that
of the unhappy one who fled down it with his wretchedness
(otherwise no track, and no track to show that anyone can
come back along this way); there, too, the invitation finds its
way and most easily when it brings back the fugitive to the In
viter. Come here, come here all of you – and you and you and
you, too, you who are the loneliest.
This invitation stands at the crossroad, where temporal and
earthly suffering has planted its cross, and there it beckons,
“Come here, all you poor and miserable, you who must slave in
poverty to eke out an existence with nothing more than a toil
some future. Come here, all you despised and discarded ones,
whose existence no one cares about, not even as much as for a
domestic animal, that has more value! All you sick, lame, deaf,
blind, crippled, insane come here!”
The invitation blasts away
all distinctions in order to gather everybody together.
You sick at heart; you who through your anguish learn that a
person’s heart and an animal’s heart are not the same; all you
who have been treated unfairly, wronged, insulted, and mis
treated; all you noble ones, you who were loving and unselfish
and faithful, yet who deservedly reaped the reward of ingrati
tude – come here! All you victims of cunning and deceit and
backbiting and envy, whom evil singled out and cowardice de
serted, where no one asks what rights you have, where no one
asks what wrong you have suffered, and where no one asks
where it pains or how it pains, while the crowd tramples you
into the dust – come here!
The invitation stands at the crossroad, where death separates.
Come here, all you sorrowing ones, you who burdened labor in
vain! Come here also you, you who have been consigned to live
among the graves, you who are regarded as dead but are not
missed, are not lamented, you to whom human society cruelly
locks its doors and for whom no grave has yet mercifully
opened; you, too, come here, here is rest and here is life!
The invitation stands at the crossroad, there where the road
of sin veers away from the hedgerow of innocence. Come here,
you who are so close and yet so far away. Come here, all you
who are lost and gone astray, whatever your error and sin,
whether hidden or revealed. Even if you have found forgiveness
from others but do not have peace within, turn around and
come here; here is rest!
The invitation stands at the crossroad,
there where the way of sin turns off for the last time and disap
pears from view in perdition. Oh, turn around, turn around,
and come here. Do not shrink back, no matter how hard it is.
Do not fear the narrow way of conversion that leads to salva
tion. Do not despair over every relapse. God in his mercy has
the patience to forgive and a sinner should have the patience to
humble himself. Do not despair. He who says, “Come here,” is
with you each step of the way. But come!
Come here, all of you; with him is rest. He adds no burden,
he only opens his arms. He will not first ask you, as do the
“righteous people” who try to help, “Are you not perhaps to
blame for your misfortune?” It is so easy to judge by externals,
to think that if someone does not get on well in the world that
he is bad, or that he is an evil person that has done something
wrong.
If you feel your need, he will not question you about it. He
will not break the bruised reed even more but will lift you up
when you accept him. He will not point his finger at you and
thereby separate you from himself, so that your sin becomes
even more terrible. He will provide you a hiding place with
himself, and hidden in him he will hide your sins.
For he is the friend of sinners. He does not merely stand still with open arms
and say, “Come here.” No, like the prodigal son’s father he seeks
the sinner, and like the good shepherd he seeks the lost sheep.
He walks – no, he runs, but infinitely farther than any shepherd
or any father. Indeed, he goes the infinitely long distance from
being God to becoming man. And this he did to seek the lost!
The Inviter does not wait for those who labor and are bur
dened to come to him. He himself lovingly calls. He himself
comes. He follows the urging ache of his heart, and his heart
follows his words, “Come here!” If you follow these words, they
in turn will follow you back again into his heart. Oh, that you
would only accept the invitation, “Come here!”
