Apple carts and the marginalized

Luke 6:12-26

             A reading from scripture is coming to mind about being good to everyone. What value is there in being nice to people you like? Don't thieves do as much? This reading from Luke is what brings that line to mind. Jesus is always upsetting the apple cart. In todays' passage, Jesus isn't preaching to the palace elite, the goody two shoes of the time. He speaks to the marginalized. Not only does Jesus speak to them, he encourages them and lets them know they are loved, their time will come.

             This alone must have upset the religiously righteous of his time. The ones with a will to power must have asked what was going on? The Messiah is coming for us, not "them".

            It must be equally upsetting today that so many sinners see and feel the power of God's abiding love in their lives but yet are considered sinners and unworthy by those in power. Within the church, people who are gay, divorced, 'living in sin', practicing birth control or a whole host of other infractions and flaws that keep them unworthy are realizing they ARE worthy, God does in fact love them and they are worthy of respect and decent loving lives. Perhaps it is the church that is wrong. (note: if there's no blog entry tomorrow it may be because a bolt of lightening came through the roof because I said "The church is wrong").

             If you don't realize you are worthy and you don't know in the deepest recesses of your heart that Jesus loves you for who you are, know it now. This passage of "Blessed are...." is as valid today as it ever was. Jesus still speaks, the Spirit is alive and well.

       YOU are my beloved disciple.

          

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
   for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
   for you will laugh.

‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
‘But woe to you who are rich,
   for you have received your consolation.
‘Woe to you who are full now,
   for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
   for you will mourn and weep.

‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.