…Jesus gave his attention to those on the margins, whom
society had rejected or looked down on: women living in a man’s world, despised
Samaritan neighbors from across the border, people who were outcast because of
illness or deformity, or who just failed to “fit in.”
Whenever we feel shut out or shut down, Jesus can fill us
with this kind of defiant joy and unexpected determination. And, living in the Spirit of God, we also
have the capacity to “be Christ” to one another: lifting one another up, and
transforming each other’s experience from rejection to rejoicing.
Reverend
Professor Maggi Dawn
______________________________
blessed are those precious souls
whom the politics of abuse
the religion of exclusion
have driven to the margins
outside the circle of worth
and grace
blessed is the immigrant
fearfully hiding
the trans person, erased
the person who is assumed to be deficit
unworthy
because they happen to be
a woman,
or a person of color
blessed are they
the mournful poor
the oppressed grieving
the quietly kind
the shut out shut down
GodWithUs is with them
they are the sheep found
the brother returned
they are the people
invited to the table, to the feast of love
there they are
GodInThem
Transforming
Lamentation to hope
Sorrow to joy
there they are in the fields
the detention centers
the unemployment lines
the dry places under bridges
being Christ
to one another
lifting each other up
blessed are they
those people of defiant joy
they are loved, valued, welcomed
included
they are the chased after
sought
by One who will not let them go
and theirs is the kin-dom of heaven
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