Any Less

It’s easy to love Jesus
when you drive a brand new F-350 diesel,
while vacationing for the winter in Gulf Shores, Alabama
in your 100 thousand dollar RV,
taking charter bus trips to Biloxi
for a night at the casinos.

Easy when you live in middle-class America,
surrounded by all your healthy, happy children
and plump, giggling grandchildren,
your body free from pain,
not twisted and grotesque
from diseases like aids and cancer,
not panting and short of breath
by clogged arteries to the heart,
because you have health insurance and can afford
the best medical treatment available,
with all the specialists and bypass surgeries money can buy,
yes, it is easy then.

Not so easy,
when you go through life worried and afraid,
worried about feeding your children,
worried about providing a shelter over their heads,
worried about the lump growing on your child’s arm,
unable to get it tested
because you have no health insurance,
praying for the strength to get through one more day
as you go to your low paying job,
where America’s elite treat you like a hired servant,
because they have money and drive diesel powered F-350s
with ‘I Love Jesus’ on the front license plate,
and you don’t.

Some day we will all be the same,
standing before a holy and righteous God,
and I wonder how they will answer then,
when they see themselves
speaking with derision and disgust
to the person working for minimum wage,
because their cheese was sliced
a millimeter thicker than requested,
or because they had to wait
more than 5 minutes in the checkout line,
I wonder who will be blessed then,
I wonder if their diesel powered F-350s
with the ‘I Love Jesus’ front license plates
will mean anything then.

Then He speaks to me;
reminding me
that He walked this earth with nothing,
in spite of being the King
to whom everything belongs,
that He endured humiliation and torment
without ever once complaining or hating,
that even though He was the greatest,
He became the servant of many,
laying down his life for all,
paying a cost only He could pay,
doing the will of the Father
despite the suffering and pain,
giving us the example to be followed,
proving that He loves us all
unconditionally and without favor,
even those who drive brand new F-350s
with ‘I Love Jesus’ front license plates.

And He asks me;
“Is the servant greater than the master?”
as I quietly (and humbly) think to myself,

should I do any less?