I never assume everyone should be treated equally. It is a fallacy that Jesus taught this. In fact it speaks to our need to twist the Gospel into our own context, one obsessed with majority rule and self-interest, that we even imagine that Jesus told us to line up with our needs, that he would treat us all the same. The reality is that the Gospels clearly demonstrate that Jesus gave most of his attention to those who needed it most. Jesus made it clear he was the physician and he had come for the sick, not the healthy. Mark 2:17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” In other words Jesus came to heal, to change hearts and transform the way we thought about power and structures. To demonstrate this effort he spent most of his time with those who were in need of his care and teaching.
As a Minister and an outreach worker my bias is to spend most of my time with those who need me most. I have little sympathy with those who imagine the Minister’s role is to be a chaplain to the influential, the happy and the affluent. Everyone hurts, including the wealthy and the middle class, so I end up spending time with all the persons I serve in the church. But there is no question the bulk of my time is spent with those who are hurting; physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
The most challenging thing for me in Ministry and outreach work over the last two decades has not been telling the healthy and the powerful that I need to be with the marginalized, rather it has been asking someone in distress and crisis that I need, from time to time, to pivot and spend time with another who is even more challenged, even more distressed in that moment. It isn’t that I am abandoning anyone. Lord knows I remain focused on those in distress, but when the person whom I have been offering care sees me moving across the room to be with another in a more acute crisis there can be tension and conflict.
I always assumed that when you have been at the lowest point in life and needed care that when another presented her/himself in a similar predicament there would be empathy, a sharing of time with caregivers, a recognition that what s/he received must also be shared with the other in pain. In many cases this does happen but not always. And this has surprised me, still surprises me.
I tend to assume that if someone has given you support, offered you a hand up, spent considerable time with you that you in turn would understand when the caregiver immediately went to the new person in the room, the person in crisis, and did the same for her/him as s/he did for you. I never ever want to be thanked or credited for offering support. God has done far more for me, others have done far more for me, than I will ever be able to offer another. My confusion is more about why those in need do not always recognize how others in need require as much attention as they do. Perhaps this is unfair of me to expect this consistency, this “treat others as you wish be treated”, perhaps when you are down, when you are in crisis, it is impossible to see how others are in similar dire straits.
I offer this question, this confusion, in all of my prayers and conversations with God. I am waiting on the response. In the meantime I serve with every fiber of my body hoping I am making the right choices about the time I spend, with whom and when. God knows I am trying, however imperfectly.