One of these is not like the other...

Dear Family,
It has been a wild week in the Bowen household, a truly wild week. We welcomed beautiful Reyna Mae into our home, and what a blessing. Mommy and Reyna are doing well, and the adjustment to a crying baby, all hours of the night, begins once again. This time, though, i know it lasts but for a short while. Just like the song, "IT wont be like this for long..."

Thank you all for your prayers, thoughts, cards, gifts, and visits. We feel loved and incredibly blessed to be a part of this church family.

As much as we could talk about how beautiful Reyna is, she doesn't exactly make, not yet anyway, good fodder for the message, so we must shift gears and focus on Matthew 8. This is a powerful chapter about ministry in action, and i find a lot of irony in this chapter as well.

First of all the first healing Jesus does, in this chapter, involves a man with leprosy, someone unclean, someone unworthy of affection, and someone who would have to walk on the other side of the road, from society, and yell "UNCLEAN!" It isn't enough that this insidious disease rob this man of life, but society is robbing him of dignity too. This man, this unclean, disease ridden man, becomes Jesus' first testimony of grace, healing, and love. Not how powerful, "right," ministries begin.

Second healing miracle involves a centurion, the enemy. So let's recap: Jesus begins his healing ministry by healing an unclean leper, someone society relegated to the margins a long time ago, and Jesus' second healing miracle involves the occupier, the enemy, the people most hated? And we wonder if Jesus is radical?

All too often, what i have found, is that we want to minister to people that look, that think, that act like we do, because they are safe. There is little risk in ministering to someone from the same neighborhood, with the same political views, or someone who you know well. There is little to no risk. But what happens if we choose, like Jesus did, to minister to those outside our social circles? What happens if we choose to, like Jesus did, minister to our enemies as well as our friends? What happens if our minister resembles more of the radical nature of Jesus than the comfortable, complacent nature that many resemble? What happens?

Could we feed more people? Might our churches be breaking at the seams with people wanting, needing help? Would we experience the power of the Divine? Marriages saved? Children rescued? Diseases healed? Addictions cured? Darkness blinded out by light? Could this, would this be possible, real, if we would only minister to those on the margins, instead of those we feel safer with? I dont know.

But i do want to find out. What about you all?

Shalom,
Jerry