Blessed Are the Humiliated
Blessed are the poor who have nothing to own.
Blessed are the mourners who are crying alone.
Blessed are the guilty who have nowhere to go,
For their hearts have a road to the kingdom of God
And their souls are the songs of the kingdom of God
And they will find a refuge, for theirs in the kingdom of God.
-Jon Guerra, “Kingdom of God”
Spring never fails to surprise me. Each year, it seems like such an impossibility that life could blossom from the sterile harshness of winter. But it does. This Tuesday morning, I set out with a hopeful heart into the damp possibility of spring. In my neighborhood, frothy pink cherry blossoms are beginning to peek out of tree branches that spent an entire season looking brittle and dead. As I walked, I marveled at the reflection of clouds still tinged with early morning yellow in the puddles from last night’s rain. Tuesday morning’s beauty was healing the winter places in me that still clung to death, and I felt gratitude. Peace. But then I saw something ugly—something utterly contradictory to the hope and life I had begun to breathe in.
As I was walking home, I witnessed a man in a reflective orange vest and mirrored purple glasses picking up trash. As he worked, he occasionally looked up with a dazed “what am I doing here?” expression on his face. A supervisor stood nearby, clipboard in hand, watching as the man stabbed trash and leaves with a pointed stick in front of the Auburn Regional Justice center. Piece by piece, he shook the trash into a red Radio Flyer wagon by his side.
There was something striking to me about this scene.
Most likely, the man in the orange vest and Ozzy Osbourne glasses was doing community service. The man with the clipboard was probably his probation officer. But the little red wagon on the sidewalk and the confused, worried look on the man’s face had the unsettling effect of transforming him into a bewildered child and the clipboard man into a stern father, watching to make sure the work got done correctly. It made me feel nervous and a little sad.
I saw this scene from a distance, and I didn’t know what to do as I walked closer. I did know that I wanted to avoid causing the man doing community service to experience shame. Can you imagine how humiliated he must have already felt to know that everyone passing on the street saw him being supervised as he picked up trash? While I was contemplating his shame, I felt my own shame rising and desperately wanted a way to avoid confronting all that was making me feel squirmy inside. But I kept walking.
Several steps later, the unavoidable moment had arrived: I was face to face with this man. I decided on a nervous smile, not knowing if my eyes would be able to meet his behind the wall of those mirrored purple glasses. He glanced up at me for a second, but he didn’t really see me before turning away and muttering something angry and incoherent.
A couple of steps later, I was feeling the relief of walking away from someone who made me extremely uncomfortable when I heard an inner voice say,
“The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
In that moment, my heart sank to the dirty pavement beneath my feet as I realized just how far I was from understanding the kingdom of God. I want the kingdom of God to belong to people who are just-difficult-enough that I can feel good about loving them. I don’t want the kingdom of God to belong to mentally infirm criminals who seem incapable of returning human kindness. But who was the first person Jesus said would be with him in Paradise?
A criminal.
A thief hanging next to him on the cross, naked and humiliated for all to see:
One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”(Luke 23:39-43)
“Jesus, remember me,” the thief said. And Jesus did—just as he remembers all those who come to him out of their desperate need to be re-membered. To be made whole.
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When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” he was chastising his disciples for trying to keep little children from coming to him. The disciples likely saw those children as a hindrance to the mission of God’s kingdom. But Jesus said “No, they are the kingdom of God.” And so are the flagrant sinners, the irreparably broken, those who take and have nothing to offer. I may not have seen the man doing community service as an innocent child of God, worthy of love, but God does. No one else saw the thief on the cross as someone they wanted to love for eternity, but Jesus did.
Jesus does.
So who is that person for you—the person to whom showing grace or mercy feels impossible? Perhaps it is a family member, a co-worker, or someone at church who thinks differently than you do. Maybe it is someone from your past who hurt you deeply, someone you cannot forgive.
The thing is, when we view other people who make us uncomfortable as less-worthy of God’s love, we also cut ourselves off from receiving God’s love for our most sinful and broken parts.
We cannot receive grace for the brokenness we have not acknowledged.
So what do we do when we are confronted with shame, when we are face to face with brokenness—either in the face of a stranger or the face in the mirror?
Like the thief, we cry out for mercy. We embrace humility. We throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus, trusting that his compassion will cover us and enable us to love the impossible people in our lives.
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God.
There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.(Hebrews 4:16)
Just as life blooms from the death of winter, so does healing flow from a broken and contrite heart. We need only ask for the help we need to claim life amidst death, healing amidst brokenness, joy amidst sorrow.
Jesus said,
ASK, and you will receive.
SEEK, and you will find.
KNOCK, and the door will be open to you.
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