To Identify

The leaders of the church I now serve are studying Luke/Acts this summer through daily readings and comments on face book... I LOVE The Lord, The Lord's Word and Luke!  If you read the first couple of chapters, you find God reaching into the lives of LOWLY people to lift them up in hope.  Mary, a lowly and oh yes, engaged but not married woman is chosen to be the mother of Jesus as an unwed mother.  You KNOW what kind of scandal that would be, yet God identifies with the scandalized.  His genealogy in Luke is traced through common people and not royalty, through the generations, so His lineage is marked by His commonality with regular folks.  They were too poor to bribe anyone for a room and Jesus was born in a barn, laid in a feeding trough for animals, so His beginnings are humble and poor, even homeless... then Jesus, (according to Matthew's Gospel) is made a Refugee in a foreign land because of political/religious persecution... identifying with the strangers in a land... the announcement of His birth breaks forth for the NIGHT CREW of Shepherds, who must watch the flocks at night... manual laborers are honored with the first announcement... then Jesus shares His mission as being Good News for the poor, oppressed and most vulnerable in society, as Jesus identifies with them in the world and champions them.  And with whom do WE identify in OUR society and OUR American Christian church - the scandalized in society, poor, homeless, the common people, strangers in our land, the day laborers or night crew, the oppressed and most vulnerable... or the rich and powerful?  Who do WE lift up?  Who do WE benefit?  Who do WE promote?  I will vote for the candidate who will most help "the least of these", whom God loves and with whom Jesus identifies, or at least the one who will hurt them the least.  I do so without hesitation or reservation.  If it is what Jesus did and commanded, I will do it GLADLY.  I think the powerful and wealthy are blessed enough, and could perhaps stand to be more of a blessing for others.  I worship and follow the Lord whose mom praised the God who "scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree... has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich has sent away empty..."  I think she had something there, and understood God's will for God's children as brothers and sisters, in the world.  Would that we would grow more in our following of Jesus in how we live with those with whom Jesus identified.
Pastor Jamie