Who is the one touched?

Our Sunday school lesson today was called The Cost of Discipleship. It was based on the scripture Luke 14:25-35.

Several members of the class shared stories about how they are stepped out of their comforts zone in order to reach out in love to a stranger, or how a stranger how shared the love of Christ with them. None of the class members said that their actions had been what they would have normally chosen to do, but all of them reported that they had been more blessed by their actions than the stranger had been.

The class member who handed the street woman money, the couple that had fed a stranger and asked him to eat with them, the husabnd and wife who continually found themselves in situations where they had been asked to gives strangers rides, and the couple who had accepted a ride from a stranger when their car was broken down -- all of the church members had found joy in what they had done.

It occurred to me in class that God calls us to reach out and share his love with other people -- even those we have never met, who don't have a home, who might look different, smell different or think different than us. Even more than that, though, I wonder if God calls us to these actions also because he knows that we will be tranformed ourselves. Perhaps we are the poor one -- perhaps we are the one who needs the help the most.

Image: We had a baptism in worship today.