A Crumbly Orange Kiss by Megan Brauckmann

Published: January 30th, 2007

Recently I heard a message in church about loving my neighbour, and an idea began nagging at me. For most of us the year normally ends and begins with “good will to all men”, and a general feeling of charity. However, charity can be used as a way around true love; a way to satiate our conscience without having a heart that is in anguish over the world.
I profess to love and care about the poor, but I realized that I did not have a face to put on these people. Some friends and I decided to make bagged lunches and head downtown to hand them out to homeless people and talk to them. I gave one to a haggard looking man with icy blue eyes. A while later, I spotted him again: he was digging through a trashcan with one hand and with the other ravenously stuffing Doritos into his mouth. When I offered him another bag, he accepted it with tears in his eyes and stumbled for words to express his gratitude, embarrassed by his hunger. Then this old man with Doritos crumbs in his beard bent down and kissed me on the cheek. In that moment, I recognized the image of God in him—and I felt honored.

Through the prophet Isaiah God spoke: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter… then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear… then you will call, and the LORD will answer… Here am I.” [Isaiah 58:6-9]
 
In this brief encounter I could see how invisible the poor usually are, so often ignored, or treated as subhuman and worthless. Looking into their faces the humanity is graphic—etched in lines on their faces, in the aching hunger in their eyes, and the faltering, shy gratitude at simply being noticed.  They are not a vague image or a distant group we feel guilty about over the holidays- but real men, women, and children; our family in need of a love beyond us. It is a good thing to give to charities, but we need to go amongst these people, to be Jesus to them and look in their faces. They are our brothers and sisters; not strangers—not a good deed.

God sees it as a great injustice to be unconcerned about the poor. In Ezekiel he speaks of one of Sodom’s great sins as being “…overfed, unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy.” Love, when it is pure, minimizes us and magnifies God—and God neither slumbers nor sleeps because humanity is on His mind. To God no one is ordinary, even the lowliest and dirtiest are of infinite value to Him. For that reason it should not be normal to pass a hungry man by. As the Bride of Christ, His passions must be ours.
 
“Work hard to feed hungry people. Satisfy the needs of those who are crushed. Then my blessing will light up your darkness. And the night of your suffering will become as bright as the noonday sun.” (Isaiah 58:10)

Photo for title image and avatar taken by Brian Boulos.

Megan Brauck is nineteen and likes to refer to herself as a "vocational lover" when people ask what she intends to do with her future.  She spends her time haunting the library, living this adventure with Jesus, and dreaming of a gypsy life. While she aspires to be a missionary, world-traveler, and photojournalist, she currently studies art and Arabic. 

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