The Gospel According To Jesus - Part 2. Why Was Jesus Killed?

Reflective Practice

As a way of meditating on Jesus’ alternative vision of the kingdom, try praying this re-phrasing of the beatitudes as a prayer practice. Pause, take some deep breaths, spend about 2 minutes tuning in to the sensations in your body and listening to the sounds around you, alert but with eyes closed. Then pray through this 3 times. If you prefer the original text in place of this re-phrasing, you’ll find it in Matt 5:3-11. If you can, spend a moment contemplating what it would be like to inhabit this view of the world and consider how that might shape or re-shape your life.

God is for those who are down-and-out, for the freaks, the weirdos, the awkward, the suffering, the irreligious and the profane;

God is for those who are deep in grief, whose pain makes them unable to participate fully in the strategies of a successful modern life;

God is for those who do not use power and strength over others in order to make their way in the world;

God is for those who long for things to be put right and for the unjust systems of the world to be torn down;

God is for those who show mercy and forgiveness to one another, rather than seeking revenge for the ways in which they have been wronged;

God is for those who can see that the external markers of religiously approved behaviour don’t mean much after all;

God is for those who resist ways of violence and oppression in the world, and instead seek to become agents of peace and reconciliation between those who do not yet understand or love one another;

And God is for those who, because they seek to live in this kind of reality, encounter the oppression, exclusion and disdain of those with power, wealth, and status.