Wednesday

I'm getting tired of my old running clothes -- some of them are 10-15 years old -- so I am looking for something new. Saw this and thought maybe it was the look for me?

So we hit 90 again yesterday? Wow, and now the forecast includes temps in the 40s. It's that interesting time of the year. It's football season: where you go from burning hot games to games where you freeze before the 4th quarter.

My last post reminded me of a sermon I did about the beatitudes a few years ago. I'll include an excerpt below, after telling you that Roger is doing pretty well. I checked on him several times yesterday and took him to town last night. I'm not sure what today will hold. I'll find out soon.

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Can you image the scene that follows Jesus? Wheelchairs and walkers. The deformed and diseased. People having seizures. People crying out in pain, like they do in the nursing homes, "Somebody help me, somebody help me." The despised and demon-possessed. And the healthy and the whole.

Dallas Willard in the Divine Conspiracy playfully paraphrases the beatitudes.

Blessed are the physically repulsive,

Blessed are those who smell bad,

The twisted, misshapen, deformed,

The too big, too little, too loud,

The bald, the fat, the old—

For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus.

Then he adds:

Then there are the "seriously" crushed ones: the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned-outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant too many times or at the wrong time. The over-employed, the under-employed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced. The parents with children living on the street, the children with parents not dying in the "rest" home. The lonely, the incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved or emotionally dead. And on and on and on. (123-4)

　
What a crowd is gathering around Jesus! Why? Because he is announcing good news and blessings from God, and he is proving it, confirming it, in the physical realm. He is healing bodies as a sign that souls are being healed. He is bringing relief as a foretaste of life where all will be made new.

This community has gathered. A motley crew. The hurting, the whole, the curious. The community sings as they follow, "Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go." So they go where he goes.
　

Jesus looks out at this motley crew of a crowd, an audience of misfits, and begins to teach. He has already been telling them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. It’s here, nearby ready to be received. There is great blessing available to all; this is good news. He’s talking to you, too, you know!

Jesus addresses the poor in spirit (and the poor). Jesus looks at man who looks like he has traveled through hell–he is weary and worn from sin. His face is like leather; his eyes are not sharp or clear; his fingers are stained. He has bottomed-out over and over again; foolish pleasures and mistakes have cost him dearly. He is poor and poor in spirit and at the end of his rope and even considers making a noose with it. But today he has come to hear this unusual teacher teaching unusual things.

The teacher looks at him and says, "Congratulations, my son, the Kingdom has come and you can be a part of it. How blessed you are to be in state of humility; you are now ready to receive the Kingdom of Heaven; it’s yours."