Being a “friend of sinners” is an accusation that Christians should wear as a badge of honor, for nothing could honor Jesus more, and nothing is more revealing of who God actually is.

To take Christ into our well-ordered, well-kept lives is in many ways to ask for trouble, for he will not leave well enough alone.

Jesus does not demand of us higher standards, he offers us himself. Jesus does not require of us super-human ability or commitments. He gives us his ability and grace.

Because we follow Christ and are citizens in the kingdom of God, the rationale “that’s just the way it is,” is not near enough motivation or excuse to keep going with the flow.

The status quo will be insurrected by hope and transformation, as slowly and steadily the "God Movement" invades this world with certain salvation. This is not high-minded idealism or a feigned quest for utopia. It is a hopeful, defiant trust that God’s will indeed will be done and God’s kingdom will come, on earth as it is in heaven.

The good news, as Jesus proclaims it, is not just an evacuation plan to rescue people from earth or the sufferings of the afterlife, transporting them to heaven. Rather, it is a revolutionary strategy to redeem the sufferings of earth by putting the rule and reign of heaven inside of people.

Jesus never described the gospel as an exchange of this current world for a remote spiritual retreat far away. Never. Rather, his gospel was: “God’s kingdom is here! It has arrived! It is now! Heaven has come to earth!” So when Jesus invited his disciples – then as well as now – to “Follow me,” he was inviting them to get in on the world-redeeming, evil-conquering, status-reversing, life-transforming movement of God that had invaded planet Earth.

Many of us vote under the assumption that if only the right man/woman/party/ideology could get seated in the White House, the Court House, or the School House then the Kingdom of God would come. That is an illusion. We do not look for the church to assist in or endorse the building of a made-in-America utopia which is only a Babylon with red, white, and blue curtains. We look for a city whose builder and maker is God. To him, and only him, we must pledge our primary allegiance.

The Beatitudes are no spiritual “to do list” to be attempted by eager, rule-keeping disciples. It is a spiritual “done” list of the qualities God brings to bear in the people who follow Jesus.

One of the tragedies of current Christianity in America is that we have so few compelling illustrations of this life that Jesus lived and the type of radical community he came to create. Leading pastors and preachers are little more than family-friendly celebrities or game show hosts with all the razzle-dazzle and mass media presence that accompanies the position.