Saturday, September 24, 2011

The Beatitudes

At the Methodist Student Center, I got a chance to talk to the students about my favorite of the Beatitudes... Blessed are the peacemakers. I know, I know, everyone knows I'm a straight up brawler, so how can that one be my favorite? Maybe later we'll talk about that... "blessed are the peacemakers" means something much different than the surface look reveals...

What was going on with me that night was I was sitting around with the students, thinking about how some of them are under pressure for their faith, have been; some have given their whole young lives to Him. It's not like I came in at the last hour, but it's more like 3 o'clock The Lord came to the city square and found me doing absolutely nothing (oh, I was busy, but it was a big pile of nothing) and said, "Go work in my vineyard."

I got there late, had to learn the job quick.

I have a sense of profound unworthiness that only can be overcome by the grace of God.

I remember my first communion at Annual Conference as a probationary member. I was there with my boy David Crow--we should have known the days were short--they are always short. Anyway, Debbie Padgett was serving communion and I was struck by her smile, of course, but also by the thought that here is someone sold out for a long time to Jesus. And I was thinking, "Man, if they only knew... they would never let me in." I was thinking about how guys with a prison record probably wouldn't make it-- and most of what I did just wasn't illegal. Or there's no piss test for my sins.

So, yeah, communion is pretty sweet.

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