Our Place in His Story: Caring for the Vulnerable

In Tacoma, our Church regularly helped a widow in our Church, who suffered a stroke. The first time we helped her we did a major amount of yard work, trimming trees, cleaning junk out of her back yard, cleaning her house. Then later, the community group I was apart of went to serve her by cleaning the inside of her house.   One of her issues was that she was addicted to the shopping network.  So that day as the ladies in our group cleaned the kitchen they found things like 6 can openers, 50 tupperwear bowls, and multiples of all kinds of kitchen gadgets. She would just see something, and she’d order it. In fact, in her kitchen and living room that day there were probably 15 to 20 unopened boxes.

Not long after that, she called me to say she had a leak in her basement and could I come to investigate. As a group we knew she still needed tons of help around her home, so we once again descended on her home, and the gals once again worked with her to go through her things to help her decide what to keep and what to give away, and we began cleaning the basement so we could get to the cause of the leak. After about two hours we traced the cause of the leak to a broken sewer line. It was an old house and the sewer line had caved in to the point that raw sewage had backed up into the cleanout and now whenever she flushed her toilet, the raw sewage would simply ooze out into the basement walls… You sort of get the picture, and it wasn’t pretty. But before you know it, there I was on my hands and knees scooping raw sewage out of the cleanout in the basement. Mike Rowe got nothing on me. That gave her temporary relief. Then I called my plumber friend and he repaired the damaged line so that there would be no further problems. Needless to say, that was quite an experience. But I tell you this story, because this woman fit the description of what the Bible calls a Vulnerable Person.

Here’s the definition of a Vulnerable Person. Someone who is helpless, defenseless, powerless, impotent, weak, susceptible. In need of special care, support, or protection because of age, disability, or risk of abuse or neglect.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the vulnerable people in our world today. Perhaps you’ve actually been in their shoes at one time or another. Because the vulnerable of our world come in many shapes and sizes: Vulnerable widows, single mothers, orphans, children in foster care, the disabled, the elderly, victims of disasters, prisoners, refugees, the mentally ill, the abused and battered, victims of sex trafficking and the homeless. In fact, when you start to list all the different kinds of vulnerable people in our world, it can be overwhelming. And we can look at our own lives and have any number of reactions: we can be so overwhelmed that we just kind of ignore the needs around us by thinking things like, that’s not my problem, or the government has social programs to deal with people like this. Or we can be grateful that we have been so blessed to not be in such a helpless of vulnerable place. Or we can be moved with compassion to make things right in our world by doing something to help. And hopefully, this is where you find yourself this morning. For as we come to God’s Word today, we are going to see how God feels about the vulnerable among us, and how His grace to us will lead us to be His hands and heart to the needy among us. So, if you brought your Bible with you today, let me encourage you to open your Bibles to Psalm 146, where the Psalmist gives us a picture of:

1. God’s Heart for the Vulnerable:

The LORD executes justice for the oppressed

    and gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets prisoners free,

    the LORD gives sight to the blind,

The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,

    The LORD loves those who live justly.

The LORD watches over the foreigner

    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,

    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.   Psalm 146:7-9

The first thing we see is that the name used of God here is Yahweh, the Covenant Keeping God, the One who seeks to do good and bless the ones He loves. This is the definitive picture of the God of grace in the Old Testament. And the first description of this gracious God here is that He executes justice for the oppressed – those who are helpless, in distress, those who are being taken advantage of.

He “executes justice” for the oppressed. Executing Justice is the Hebrew term mishpat. Mishpat’s most basic meaning is to treat people equitably.  Mishpat also means acquitting or punishing every person on the merits of the case, regardless of race or social status. The idea is that anyone who does the same wrong should be given the same penalty.

But mishpat means more than the punishment of wrongdoing. Mishpat also means to give people their rights. In Deuteronomy 18, God’s Word makes it clear that the priests of the tabernacle should be supported by a certain percentage of the people’s income. This support is described as “the priests’ mishpat,” which means their due or their right. So when we read Scripture about caring for the vulnerable God’s Word says it like this, “Defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9).

Mishpat, then, is giving people what they are due, whether punishment or protection or care. So in this Psalm, that is what God does. He cares for the oppressed. But He also feeds the hungry, sets the prisoner free and gives sight to the blind.

If these words sounds familiar, it is because this is precisely what Isaiah said the coming Messiah would do. Jesus read this Scripture in Luke 4, when he proclaimed that these Scriptures were fulfilled with his coming: The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1 And this is what Jesus did. He came preaching the good news, he gave hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless, opened the eyes of the blind, and freed those enslaved by sin and oppressed by religion. He came to the least of these, and he came to love, protect, lift up and make them whole again.

Listen to some of the descriptions of the generous and compassionate justice of Jesus:

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:35-36 This description of being harassed and helpless pictures God’s people who were being oppressed by the legalistic practices of the religious leaders. They harassed them by piling on the burden of the law with no relief, and therefore they were helpless. Jesus came to remove the oppression of religion – to set us free.

The second: When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Matthew 14:14

A third one: Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.” Matthew 15:32 Those who had gathered around to hear Jesus lived from paycheck to paycheck; their lives were not easy. So Jesus wanted to feed them, and he did. God came to us in Jesus full of grace, preaching the good news, healing the sick, setting people free, defending the rights of the poor and needy. When you look at Jesus life, that’s what he was about: loving the unlovely, lifting up the broken, welcoming the unwanted.

And when we go back to Psalm 146, we see further evidence of God’s gracious heart to the vulnerable as we read, The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, The LORD loves those who live justly. Psalm 146:8

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down: God is our helper who comes alongside in our distress, whether we are grieving or in anguish over life’s troubles. He comes to us when life beats us up and He lifts us up. This is a beautiful picture of God’s heart to the hurting. This picture of “being in anguish over life’s trouble” is especially true of so many poor in our community who do not have enough income to make ends meet. This week I met with Lucy Rangel who gives oversight to the Santa Cruz Valley Food Bank. One of the things she told me is that many of the families they serve often find themselves between a rock and a hard place – they find themselves struggling over which bills to pay and putting food on the table. The anguish is real. In fact, this past month, the Food Bank gave out food baskets to 357 households in the Eloy/Picacho area, accounting for 1434 individuals, most of them children. Many of these families are truly hurting. Their struggle to exist often exhausts them, draining them of energy and destroying their hope. And as Lucy spoke with me, you could hear the compassion of God has this quality of God: she wants to lift up those who are bowed down. In fact, everyone associated with this organization is there for that very purpose. They are serving as God’s Heart and Hands to the vulnerable.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; and The LORD loves those who live justly. In other words, if God loves the broken, the distressed, the helpless, the vulnerable… then the ones who help them, the ones who live justly – these are the ones who God loves. God loves those who help the least of these!

In fact that’s what’s recorded for us in Matthew 25:31-40 when Jesus said, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

God is a defender of the fatherless. He draws near the brokenhearted. He gives mercy and compassion to the poor. He loves the immigrant. He lifts up the downtrodden. God cares for the vulnerable. And He loves those who do the same.

God loves those who help the least of these! And that means us. We are to be God’s heart and hands to the vulnerable among us. And He tells us how we can be His heart and hands in Micah 6:8 He has shown you what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. Micah 6:8

This one verse sums up all of God’s law; the way of living God has given us to reflect His new kind of humanity. This is how we are to be His witnesses, not only here in our Jerusalem, but also in our Judea – the area surrounding us made up of Eloy, Arizona City and Casa Grande. He wants us to walk humbly with Him, having His heart of compassion for the vulnerable, so that we might be His hands to lift up them up. So that through us we might serve the least of these.

That was the WITNESS of the early church. Listen to the philosopher Aristides, who lived in Athens when he wrote to Emperor Hadrain in AD 125, about the everyday acts of mercy of the Christians around him. He writes: “They go their way in all modesty and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another. From widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother. And whenever one of their poor passes from the world, each one of them according to his ability gives heed to him and carefully sees to his burial. And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minster to his necessity, and if it is possible to redeem him, they set him free. And if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days, in order to supply to the need their lack of food.”

Jesus has told us we will be His witnesses in our Jerusalem, our Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Robson Ranch is our Jersualem, and God is calling us to love our neighbors right here. That’s what we looked at last week: People helping people to become friends with Jesus by becoming their friends through the rhythms of everday life. And as we pray for them, learn their stories, share our table and our lives, we will learn how to serve and love them like Jesus. But God has also called us to be His witnesses outside these walls – to our Judea – to care for the vulnerable. So here then is our initial Judea vision:

Our Judea: To be the heart and hands of God to the most vulnerable around us through strategic partnerships in the Eloy, Casa Grande and Arizona City area.

We initiated this vision two weeks ago when you gave generously to help fill the empty freezers of the Eloy Food Bank.   And God was pleased, for out of the $4000 that was given, on Tuesday, we were able to deliver enough chicken and frozen hamburger to fill those freezers. We were also able to provide 2000 diapers and baby wipes.

As a result, we are already becoming the heart and hands of God to the vulnerable. But this is just the beginning.   Our first strategic partnership will be with the Eloy Food Bank. From this month forward we are setting aside part of our budget to help provide food and diapers to care for the vulnerable around us. Not only that, but we still have over $1500 from our original offering. This we will add to what we have set aside and will help provide Turkeys for Christmas baskets for these needy families. This is just the beginning. For as God continues to grow our hearts through the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, we will become His heart and hands to the least of these.