Thank you, John Legend.
The author of Luke's Gospel gave me a tremendous gift. Rather than "spiritualize" and therefore obfuscate the transformation to come when God's Will IS done on earth as in heaven, the author of Luke/Acts put it plainly (6:17-26) in a vision of how God will turn around the injustices suffered under empire.
Being poor causes one to be poor in spirit. Not having what you need to sustain your life while seeing all around you the obscene wealth of others and how the 1% live their oppulent lifestyles multiplies one's lack of well-being. God says that the poor are blessed in the Kingdom and that it will be turned around. Those who are poor now will inherit the Kingdom and those who are wealthy now have already received all that they will. The redistribution will come and the systems that rewarded the ruthlessly greedy will be torn apart.
Make no mistake - those who are hungry now hunger and thirst for righteousness. Watching their children remain hungry, even starve while others in the world throw away food and hoard it until it rots leads one to cry out for righteousness to be restored in the world. Empire provides more for the already bloated and demands more of those who are already starving so that they may have it. God's will has no room for that, and in Luke Jesus promises that those hungry now will be filled and those who are full now will know the hunger they have suffered under empire.
The tears of God's children come because they mourn the losses they have suffered of dignity, equality, justice and hope. Those who have had it all stripped away weep because they are stuck in their current state as those who have put them in it laugh and smugly go through life. But those laughing now under empire's insidious inequities will later weep for all that they have lost, but more- for the deficits in their souls that led them to believe they were entitled to be privileged above others who are children of God.
The marginalized, scapegoated, disenfranchised who are recipients of ethnocentrism, classism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, religiophobia and nationalism are loved by God and will receive from the Kingdom of God the restoration of their respect and equality. They will have equitable treatment in the Kingdom as it comes. Those who are privileged now for no real reason, but are given merit only for what they look like, who they love, what faith they practice or where they were born or what they were born into, and who promote and promulgate the arbitrary distinctions that benefit themselves over others will be counted among the reprobates of the past.
Yes, PLEASE!
Enough of this insanity that divides!
Turn it around, Lord! In fact, turn it on its head!
Re-distribute the wealth so that all have enough!
End the hatreds that insanely hurt many of your children!
Reverse the elitist norms that have been created to benefit the unscrupulous, ruthless few over the rest of the world!
THY KINGDOM COME. THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IN HEAVEN.
PLEASE!
NOW!
How can I help?
Pastor Jamie
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