[OBW]

Unto,

I have been noting for a year or so that we are so prone to celebrating the exceptional. But the exceptionalism is in religious activities. How they take roles in worship or teaching Sunday School. How they go out and preach the gospel on a campus, on the job, door-to-door, or even in remote and dangerous areas of the world.

And we tell everyone that this is what we need to be doing.

So the average Joe (or Jane) in the seats on Sunday becomes an afterthought. Or is looked-down on as just a hanging on. You aren't really engaged in the kingdom if you are not doing these things.

Yet when Jesus taught there on that mountainside, he was mostly interested in how the people lived, not how they worshipped or the rhetoric they used in proselytizing. There are some parts that talk about prayer. And about what really matters. And while not part of that particular sermon, there are some who wax poetic about the pearl of great price. Yet if I look at that in the context of the whole of Jesus teaching, the pearl is more likely in being righteous, just, honest, and in harmony with the people around you than just in some esoteric future kingdom. It seems that the "word" that Jesus had been teaching — the word that was sown earlier in Matt 13, was about the kingdom which is so significantly laid out in Matt 5 – 7. So that is more likely the content of the kingdom that is likened to a pearl that a merchant would go to such great lengths to obtain.

We don't seem to think much of that. We would rather turn our noses up at sinners and refuse them cakes (since they are sinners). Not very harmonious. Not much of a pearl there.

I know there is a lot of push-back lately against the idea of "love the sinner but hate the sin." Maybe it is because we are incapable of truly loving sinners when we are focused on their sin. Maybe that should be God's job. Not saying that we should always be silent about sin. But the way we are not silent should even be punctuated with love. Let God convict them of sin. Let the word go out and let God convict.

And writing that was very convicting. It is like a light went off on something that I hold to so strongly that maybe needs some adjustment. Or even serious rework.