Who do you hang around with

In my last blog I talked about following Jesus so closely that we get covered by the dust of his feet. I wonder how many of us are willing to follow Jesus that closely because that can be pretty messy business. Look at the accusations against Jesus about who he hung out with, Jesus repeats some of these accusations in Matthew 11, "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."' I'm wondering what those people would say about the average disciple of Jesus today, if we would be accused of being gluttons and drunkards because we hang out with the undesirables, the fringe people in our society. It is much easier to look like a Christian when everyone around is playing at following Jesus too. There's a collection to feed the hungry, throw a couple extra bucks in and we're good with God. Sign a petition against the evil of the day and you're standing up for the faith. Commiserate with your friends about how we're no longer a Christian nation and then head over to the latest shoot-them up blood bath movie with everyone else and cheer.
I grew up in a family where faith got messy. Some of my earliest memories are of people showing up at the door looking for a meal and my mother or grandmother digging in the cupboards to find something for them to eat. One evening when my dad was at work, we heard a frantic knocking on our door and there were two little girls wet and bedraggled, their mother had just tried to drown them in the ditch because she was at her wit's end. They were hungry, alone with no one and nothing. I was sent to run over the the pastor's house to get him, but he wasn't home. When I came home the girls were in a warm bath, the mother was sitting in our kitchen drinking coffee while mom was cooking up some food for them. When the police arrived, my mom met them at the door and told them to be kind and gentle. She then invited them in and they joined the distraught mother for coffee and some food. I was put in charge of making sure the two little girls were alright. This is simply one example of how my parents lived out their faith. It was about stepping into messy lives and situations and telling people that God is with them.
My wife, God bless her soul, has entered into many messy life situations because I have a tendency to enter other peoples' messy lives too. Even before we entered ministry, we had strangers knock on our door asking for a bed and food for the night, and we welcomed them in; some more heartily than others I will admit. One day I came home from working at the bakery and there was a woman and her son sitting on our neighbour's step. They had been kicked out and had no place to go. They were living in an RV that had no propane left and it was autumn and snow was beginning to fall. She was a stripper as this was one of the few ways she could support herself and her son. I welcomed her in and my wife supported me. Over the next couple of weeks we had a chance to get to know her and her son and introduce her to our pastor. She continued to work in one of the bars and when she saved up enough money to get back home, halfway across the country, she and her son went. About a year later we received a card thanking us for helping them get back on their feet again and that they were checking out churches in their area.
Montreal has been a fascinating place for us to live as we've had many strangers and others find a place to stay with us for periods of weeks to years. It has often been messy and even unwise at times, but in every situation there was someone who felt they had no one else to turn to. We have even faced opposition from members of our own church who felt this wasn't proper, which surprisingly hurt us. In human terms, maybe it wasn't always wise, it was almost always messy, but each time another person showed up I thought of Jesus' words, "Come into my kingdom because you fed me when I was hungry, you gave me something to drink when I was thirsty, you took me in when I was a stranger, you gave me clothes when I was naked and looked after me when I was sick. You even came to prison to visit me." It's not about earning my way into heaven, but about trying to develop Jesus' heart in my own heart.
My daughter recently asked me why my wife and I took her, her sister and her brother into our family. They are all related to each other but were in three different foster homes and over the years God brought them back together again in our home. She mentioned how life would be so much easier for my wife and I if we hadn't bothered, but as I think back to why we had so many children go through our home and why we embraced three of them into our family permanently even though it has made life messy for us, I can only say that following Jesus is messy and this is what he wanted and we gladly joined on in. In the process, God has blessed us; not with wealth or influence, or even a successful ministry, but with love from those who have passed through our lives and we have learned how to live out love.
How about you, who do you hang out with? How messy is your faith life?