…when was it that we saw you hungry…?  Matthew 25:31-46  In No Man is an Island, Thomas Merton wrote; “The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life He listened and obeyed. The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection. But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way they had no choice but to reject it.” In the end, our access to God is not about our “perfection”, being separated from the “imperfection”, but rather about access to one another. It is about our willingness to live recognizing that the face of hunger, thirst, nakedness, sickness and imprisonment is characteristic in each of us at varying levels and in various ways of imperfectness. But God has given us differing gifts for a reason. True access to one another reveals those imperfections and allows the gifts of God, physical and spiritual, to be for the people of God in order that what is weaknesses in us, may be supplemented by the strength in someone else, all for the glory of God.  Access – As you did it to one of the least of these…you did it to me.

May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, …so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Romans 15:5,6