Dear Church,
This past Sunday was the second week of our series on the Sermon on the Mount: Living the Politics of Jesus in a Partisan America. Our preaching text included the Beatitudes of Jesus, and it was such an honor to proclaim the good news that “When You’re at the End of Your Rope, You’re at the Front of the Line.”
One aspect of the good news that I wasn’t able to expound upon in the sermon was related to Presence. The Presence portion of the good news of the Beatitudes is two-fold.
First, Jesus is present with the outcast, the overworked, and the overwhelmed. His presence and the in-breaking of his kingdom isn’t reserved for the cultural elites! Instead, Jesus is teaching among forgotten people.
Second, Jesus is inviting us to be present to our own brokenness. I often find myself going out of my way to avoid my own brokenness and I wonder if that might resonate with you as well. It’s part of our cultural formation. As Americans, we pride ourselves on being anything but weak! In his Beatitudes, Jesus is declaring the good news that we don’t have to posture or perform our way into his kingdom — we are free to come to him, broken and blind as we are.
May we, as the body of Christ, be present to our brokenness, the brokenness of each other, and the brokenness of our world.
Grace and peace,
Spencer
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