Compassion in the Cold...

3rd February 2019

Rev Peter Timothy
Minister, Park Baptist Church

 
Subzero temperatures and forecasts of snow is how February greets us, and it’s at times like these that I am grateful for central heating
 
Sadly that isn’t a universal provision, and at the tail-end of January, I was involved in providing emergency shelter for the rough sleepers in our town beyond the regular Friday-Sunday evenings catered for by The Living Room. In such conditions the Borough Council is obliged to find shelter for the homeless, but have only four beds available. In this instance they paid for a further four to stay at B&Bs but that still left another eight without shelter. This marks an abject failure and is a sad indictment of attitudes in our current society
 
And yet we are called to be different as the people of God. Proverbs 19:17 says “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed”
 
Jesus likens himself to a homeless man in Matthew 25, arguing that when we respond with compassion to the needs of the poor it is like we are tending to the needs of Jesus himself. Too often we can overlook our responsibility to be advocates for justice, forgetting it features consistently in scripture; from Old Testament laws to the teaching and example of Jesus
 
So as winter takes hold, let us not be cold­ hearted. The need is great but we can make a difference; indeed God calls us to!
 
image courtesy of https://pixabay.com

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