Blessed Are The Repulsive, Bald, Fat and Old
We are all familar with the beatitudes. In Matthew 5 we read:
Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth... and so on.
We typically take these to mean these are categories of people who are blessed by God. But wait... What about the Apostle Paul? He definately was not poor in spirit, yet he was very much blessed. We need to understand the beatitudes a little better. They have an important message for us today.
The beatitudes do not give us a list of types of people blessed by God, they give us a list of types of people who were thought least likely to be blessed by God by people in the first century. After all, how much chance is there for an un-spiritual person to enter heaven. And someone who mourns all the time--a real sourpuss--that's somebody we don't even want to be around.
The message of the beatitudes is that the kingdom of heaven is available to EVERYONE. In other words, just because you are poor in spirit now, does not mean God will not extend His grace to you. Jesus is telling us that even if earthly wisdom says you can not be saved, God loves you and can, through His grace, save you.
For us today the beatitudes might say something such as*:
"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, and the old--
For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus."
*Quoted from "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard (page 123). I highly recommend reading this book. He goes on to mention other people we might include in this list: the flunk-outs, drop-outs, burned-outs, broke and broken. The drug heads and divorced. The HIV-positive, brain-damaged and incurably ill. The lonely, the incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved, the unemployable, the homosexual, the pregnant too-many-times or at the wrong times...
Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth... and so on.
We typically take these to mean these are categories of people who are blessed by God. But wait... What about the Apostle Paul? He definately was not poor in spirit, yet he was very much blessed. We need to understand the beatitudes a little better. They have an important message for us today.
The beatitudes do not give us a list of types of people blessed by God, they give us a list of types of people who were thought least likely to be blessed by God by people in the first century. After all, how much chance is there for an un-spiritual person to enter heaven. And someone who mourns all the time--a real sourpuss--that's somebody we don't even want to be around.
The message of the beatitudes is that the kingdom of heaven is available to EVERYONE. In other words, just because you are poor in spirit now, does not mean God will not extend His grace to you. Jesus is telling us that even if earthly wisdom says you can not be saved, God loves you and can, through His grace, save you.
For us today the beatitudes might say something such as*:
"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, and the old--
For they are all riotously celebrated in the party of Jesus."
*Quoted from "The Divine Conspiracy" by Dallas Willard (page 123). I highly recommend reading this book. He goes on to mention other people we might include in this list: the flunk-outs, drop-outs, burned-outs, broke and broken. The drug heads and divorced. The HIV-positive, brain-damaged and incurably ill. The lonely, the incompetent, the stupid. The emotionally starved, the unemployable, the homosexual, the pregnant too-many-times or at the wrong times...
posted by BrickBalloon
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