Early in TPM, Obi-Wan Kenobi utters the famous Star Wars line, “I have a bad feeling about this.” After a quick exchange, Qui-Gon eventually tells Obi-Want to keep his “concentration here and now, where it belongs.”
Obi-Wan, not wanting to give up, replies, “But Master Yoda said I should be mindful of the future.”
Like a strict school teacher, Qui-Gon firmly replies, “But not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, young Padawan.”
While Obi-Wan had a bad feeling about the future, which impacted his ability to see the current situation. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. is quoted as saying, “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.”
There are some Christians that focus so much on the heavenly future we have in Christ that they forget to take care of the earthly needs of others.
1 John 3:17-18 warns, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
Jesus tells us about the final judgment in Matthew 25:31-46. In verses 35, He states, “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.’”
In verse 37, “Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?”
The King replies that it is when we did it to the least of these.
While the Gospel is more than social work, part of being a believer is meeting earthly needs.
