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Ours is not a neat and tidy tradition, religiously speaking.....Our God seems to have a thing for the sideways, the wayward, the wanderlusts among us.....Ragamuffins and Ruffians seem to be His companions of choice...Ours is an off-the-beaten-path and back-street savior, as evidenced throughout the New Testament.
His strategems scandalized the "saintly", His social mores turned the modus operandi of the day on its ear.....He sought out sinners' company, He broke bread with those more at home in brothels and barrooms...He hung out on the fringes with the fringes,
and they loved Him
He tore down ivory towers that obscured peoples' view of God - replete with marble foyers, chandeliers, and the red carpet of the day -
and instead built His kingdom in the stables of our hearts, ever his humble birthplace and hangout of choice.
Ours is not a polished prince who wants polished prose
out of a polished posterity,
out of a polished posterity,
I think He rather prefers the prayers that are a little wrinkly, maybe with gum stuck to the bottom; I think He wants Real and not Rehearsed......Velveteen Rabbits versus the virtuous self-righteous.
I think He wants the fresh air of imperfect friends
not the Febreeze of practiced pharisaical dogma
so really, if you want to be like Jesus, Come...
Come misfit and messy, Come illegitimate and exposed,
Come vagabond and vulnerable
Come vagabond and vulnerable
That's how He came...
and His coming
changed
the
World.
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"Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Why don't you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
-Matthew 9:10-13
