Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 102 verses 16 and 17 and Luke chapter 6 verse20:
16 For the Lord builds up Zion;
he appears in his glory;
17 he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
To be weak or destitute is and always has been regarded as a crime. It is a crime to be too frail or poor or old to care for oneself. Weakness is a shame, vulnerability a disgrace.
And yet, Jesus comes saying, "Blessed are the poor," and the Psalmist speaks of God's regard for them. They are weak, but not too weak for God. No one is too weak for God; though some may perhaps be too strong.
All our native impulses teach us to show strength and shame weakness. Frailty and fatigue and poverty of any kind are rejected. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and tough it out and demand that others do also. And the weak, the disabled, the broken, we despise. But if we want to be like God we must learn to welcome what is broken, poor, handicapped, or disabled into our lives. If we are to be like God we must learn regard -- mercy and compassion -- for the weak around us and also, most importantly, for what is weak within us.
To learn to live with brokenness, to accept weakness and poverty and welcome them in rather than locking them out, to learn to call them beloved also, this is what it means to be like God.
For God's name is mercy; and ours should be also.
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