Weekly Devotion: Hidden Sight
Weekly Devotion: Hidden Sight
God Favors the Losers.
I’ve always been fascinated by what I can best call “hidden sight,” the ability to see something that others can’t see. It’s when two things, two ways of seeing things, two realities inhabit the same space. Some can see this, while others go through life not seeing this turn of events. Maybe the best example of this “hidden sight” is in the Harry Potter books. To get to the wizarding school of Hogwarts, you had to do that very British thing of taking a train. In the first book of the series, Harry learns that he has to take the train at a certain platform 9 ¾. Harry gets to King’s Cross Train Station in London and looks for the platform but can’t find it. There is a platform 9 and a platform 10, but no platform 9 ¾. But he notices a certain pillar that seems to straddle platforms 9 and 10 and he makes a run for it. Instead of running into a wall of bricks, he walks through the pillar and into Platform 9 ¾. On the other side of the pillar, there didn’t seem to be anything, which caused his very mean uncle to laugh at him. But when he went through that pillar, he was able to see a world that no one else could even though it was right in front of everybody.
Matthew 5-7 makes up what’s called the Sermon on the Mount. The text we are looking at is basically the prologue commonly known as the Beatitudes. The word beatitude comes from the Greek word makarios which can be interpreted as blessed or happy. Happy is not always the best way to describe it, the better way to talk about it is using the phrase favored. Jesus is telling the people gathered who are favored in God’s Kingdom, who matter. God pays attention to the ignored in our midst. The poor, physically and spiritually are favored by God. Those who mourn are favored by God. Those who are peacemakers and those who are persecuted are favored by God.
Jesus calls his disciples to see who God finds favor with and the people God favors are the people who aren’t the best and brightest. In our modern age, God favors those who have lost their job and wondering how to make ends meet. God favors the homeless youth kicked out of their house and has to resort to couch hopping. God favors the person who is addicted to opioids and feels that life hurts so much that they need a drug to numb the pain. God favors the losers.
The Beatitudes is a way to see the world in a way God intended. It’s the alternate reality. It’s Platform 9 ¾. This is the world where the imperfect, the losers, are the ones that count. It doesn’t matter how popular you are, how rich you are, how smart you are, or anything else. All that matters is that you are loved by God.
Church, this is the message we have to share with the world.