October 20, 2012
Title: Week 6 — The Conflict of Peace and the Joy of Persecution
Series: The King’s Speech
This week we encounter the last two Beatitudes: the peacemakers and the persecuted. We live in a world of two sides (us and them, for and against), and we are endlessly handed two options. But something profound happens when the announcement of the kingdom takes root in our lives – the same old labeling systems don’t work anymore. All of the sudden the world is just not that simple. So we will examine why Jesus connects peace-making with children of God. When we seek to be people of peace and live in the way of Jesus, the last blessing reveals that there will be resistance. The kingdom of God is a revolutionary, counter-cultural movement that proclaims a rebellion against the unholy trinity of money, sex, and power. Many do not want to escape this cycle of greed and violence, so they see the way of Christ as a threat. Jesus reminds us, “In this world you will have tribulation.” In the last Beatitude we are brought full circle. Christ says about the “poor in spirit” and the “persecuted” that “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Truth has a way of clashing with the status quo and with the vested patterns of sinful behavior which have become “normal.”