Read Matthew 5:1–12

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.” (1 Corinthians 1:27 NLT)

We live in a world obsessed with image, identity, and self-improvement—but rarely in ways that honor the sacred self God already created. From a young age, we’re taught who to be, how to behave, and what parts of ourselves to silence if we want to be accepted. Some of us spend years trying to become the version of ourselves that others will finally call good. But what if holiness isn’t about becoming someone else? What if it’s about remembering who we were all along—the person God saw and called good from the very beginning?

Part 3: Blessed Are the Misfits. When I was in sixth grade, I got into a fight with a kid who had bullied me before. This time, I lost. Badly. I can’t remember the punches, just the shame. The trying-to-be-normal and never quite passing. The teasing in the hallways. The mockery I swallowed to survive. But what I remember most didn’t come from another student. It came from a teacher. One day, in front of everyone, she called me a queerbait.

Even then, I didn’t know exactly what it meant—but I knew it meant something. Something “off.” Something unwanted. Something wrong. I felt exposed. Named. Not in the holy way God names us. In the way the world does—by what makes us different. Strange. Easy to dismiss. Fun to fear.

My mom came in, furious, and the teacher backpedaled: “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant… he’s unique. Different.” To her credit, that never happened again and she always treated me with respect and decency afterward, which hadn’t always been the case in past experience.

Maybe she thought she was offering a compliment. Maybe she was trying to explain away something society told her not to say aloud. But the damage was done. Not just by the word—but by the implication that being different was something to be whispered around, excused, or coded.

Years later, I’ve come to see that word for what it means. Queer. Strange. Different. Odd. Unique. And I claim my queerness. Isn’t that exactly who Jesus was talking to on that hillside in Matthew 5? Not the put-together. Not the powerful. But the meek. The mourners. The hungry. The harassed. The ones who didn’t fit in the world’s boxes and couldn’t pass the purity test.

Blessed are the misfits. The ones who walk into a room and feel the silence first. The ones who carry stories that don’t tidy up into sermon illustrations. The ones who are called names—and find belovedness anyway.

Maybe Jesus wasn’t offering a list of spiritual goals to strive for. Maybe he was simply describing the kind of people already sitting in front of him—tired, tender, poor, rejected, queer—and saying, “You’re the ones God sees. You’re the ones God blesses.” He wasn’t telling them to get their act together. He was telling them they already belonged.

That’s still radical. Especially in a world that tells us to clean up, shut up, shape up, and stop queering up just to be welcome in the streets, let alone in the pews. But Jesus didn’t start his ministry with a call to perfection. He started with a call to blessing—for the ones most often excluded from it.

I used to think blessing was something we had to earn. Now I know it’s something we recognize when we stop pretending. When we bring our full selves—awkward, unsure, complicated—to God without apology. When we stop performing and just show up. Jesus doesn’t say, “Blessed are those who figured it all out.” He says, “Blessed are you.”

The Beatitudes were never about who could rise to God’s standard. They were about who already mattered—exactly as they were. That includes the ones who’ve been laughed at, passed over, kicked out, called names, and rejected by the very people who claim to speak for God. And in Matthew 25, Jesus makes it clear to those who wish to exclude: You are excluding me.

So if you’ve ever felt too queer, too awkward, too unsure, too complicated—know this: you’re already held in divine favor. You’re not outside the blessing. You are the blessing. Jesus didn’t wait for you to get it together. He looked right at you and said, “Blessed are you.”

Indeed, blessed you are!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Jesus doesn’t bless the ones who perform best. He blesses the ones who show up real. If you’ve ever been called “too much” or “not enough,” hear this: you are exactly the kind of person the Kingdom belongs to.

PRAYER
God of the outcast and the overlooked, thank you for calling us blessed even when the world calls us broken. Help me to see the holiness in what makes me different. Help me stop hiding and start healing. Let me live in the light of your love—just as I am. Amen.

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Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).