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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Today's Frontline Devotion Friday, August 22, 2003 RENEGADES |
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Frontline Devotion for Friday, August 22, 2003 by Mike Martine
Christians seldom see themselves as renegades…but that is what we are called to be.
In today’s reading, Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven being like a mustard seed. To our ears, this all sounds well and good, though many have worried themselves about “whether the mustard bush is really the biggest bush at all?”
But as (mostly) people who know little about farming, we have missed the point. Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, and mustard, as any farmer knows, is a rogue plant. In fact, before herbicides, farmers who found mustard in their fields had reason to panic. Mustard, pure and simple, aggressively takes over any field where it finds root. And, in the day of Jesus, it was viewed as dangerous and seldom, if ever, raised by farmers, but rather simply harvested wild.
Why compared the kingdom to a renegade plant? Because Jesus came to challenge more than just the religious order of the world. He came to challenge the social order as well. Jesus challenged classism and economic injustice even as he warned religious people to “judge not.” In short, humankind had planted a field, a well-ordered field in its own eyes, but the mustard seed of the kingdom was coming, and it was going to take over.
We are called to be renegades. To love with a renegade love for others. To stand for the poor with a renegade sense of justice. To proclaim that all human beings are God’s children with a renegade sense of God’s grace.
You are called to be a renegade, proclaiming the peace of Christ. Let God’s peace flow through you. Be mustard in this world. Spice the world with God’s love. Refuse to fall in line with how things have always been done. Proclaim the kingdom instead, and the kingdom will be revealed in your life.
Prayer: Father God, give us courage to stand out in the world, proclaiming your love, and living out your grace in service to others, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, AMEN.
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