Jesus.
Who did he associate with?
Was it
the rich?
the influential?
the popular?
the powerful?No.
It was
the poor.
the weak.
the outcasts.
the wretched.“Therefore let your attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”
God have mercy on me.
God have mercy on me.
the wretched – les miserables. no doubt i was reading through that, my favorite book around the time i wrote this.
i was struck, and still am, at the company we keep. one of the most common criticisms of Jesus was that he was a friend of sinners. so often we engage in sectarian practices where we try as hard as we can to not associate with “bad people”. “bad character corrupts good morals”, we say. stay away from those people at all costs.
sadly, though, we ignore other verses. you are the salt of the earth. you are the light of the world. be in the world but not of the world. we’ve withdrawn from the very people who need us the most, and condemned the world to hell while we stand by watching. so un-Christlike.
not many of us minister anymore, really. and it’s a sad thing. because i think Christ would keep vastly different company than i do – and that is something that causes me more than a little bit of tension.