If you’ve ever read the Gospels, you will probably agree that Jesus is one confusing dude.
(If you disagree, and think his message is actually quite simple . . . then you and I must not be reading the same book.)
The guy speaks in riddles, answers questions with questions, and tells bizarre parables. At times he seems to contradict himself, the Old Testament, and other authors of the New Testament. You can read the same words twelve times over twelve years and get something different every time. Folks have been debating the meaning of his words for centuries.
But to me, one thing seems clear about Jesus: he really loves losers and is not a fan of winners.
Think about it. Think about the people he chose as disciples, the people he chose to hang out with. Think of the people he healed. And then think about who he criticized.
It is clear to me that Jesus loves outcasts and weirdos, sinners and sick people. His favourite people appear to be the weak, the vulnerable, the poor, and the desperate. He hung out with snot-nosed children and actual prostitutes, and showed compassion to the disabled and the chronically ill.
And he was downright vicious to the wealthy religious elites.
As he famously said, the first shall be last and the last shall be first (Matt 20:16).
He tells his followers that the Kingdom belongs to children, the most vulnerable class of humans (Matt 19:14). He told a rich man to become poor in order to follow him (Matt 19:21). In his most famous sermon, he said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who mourn… the meek… those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted because of righteousness.”
Watching and listening to Jesus, I get the sense that the gospel is good news for the marginalized and it is bad news for the rich and powerful.
In Jesus’s crazy, backwards world, the losers are already on top, and the winners have a lot to learn.
And guys, here’s where Jesus gets complicated for me: I have been a winner all my life.
I’ve lived my life covered and surrounded by privilege. I’m white, I’m straight, I’m abled, I’m educated . . . the list goes on. My family is privileged. My friends are all privileged. My church is all privileged.
So it’s no wonder to me now that the gospel has never really clicked in my life. How could I — a member of the privileged class — really understand a gospel that was meant for the desperately poor, oppressed and broken?
It only really started to make sense to me when I gave birth to a medically fragile/disabled child. The experience slowly opened up my eyes and ears to the experiences of the marginalized, and I’m only now feeling like I’m starting to connect with Jesus.
I was given responsibility for a child who was completely vulnerable and dependent on others simply to survive.
This little person who required tubes in his stomach and IV’s in his body to survive? Who would never learn to articulate his needs verbally, or use a bathroom independently, or or even feed himself without help? This was the kind of person I knew Jesus was drawn to. This little boy was counted among the blessed. He was the kind of person Jesus died for, who was already first in line for blessings.
Jesus tells us we ought to become poor, becoming vulnerable like children, if we want to be blessed. And here was a person who already was those things.
And I began to realize that the reason I had never really understood the gospel before was because I’d never really been in a position to receive it. I always already had everything I needed — love, health, security, esteem. Jesus is the King of Losers. He didn’t really have anything to offer someone like me.
But here in my arms was a child who had almost none of the things I was born with.
Jesus came into the world bearing gifts for those who have nothing. For the rich and powerful, Jesus mostly has severe warnings.
That’s why he famously said that it’s harder for a rope to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom.*
Caring for my disabled son has forced me to recognize my own privilege, which in turn is forcing me to acknowledge the lack of privilege many others experience. I have had to take some long, painful looks in the mirror, and face the fact that I am among those for whom Jesus mostly had scathing words of condemnation.
By contrast, I have had to come to terms with the belovedness of those whom I’ve ignored, judged, or scorned — people who seemed weak, pathetic, or uninteresting. I realized I was overlooking Jesus’s absolute favourite people. It’s a hard thing to admit.
Again: Jesus. Loves. Losers. So if I want to get to know and understand Jesus, I need to get to know the folks most deemed losers by the powerful.
I have been discovering, over the last four years, that I need to learn from my son and others like him. The people Jesus called “the least of these.” The people we might call “the marginalized.” The poor, the neglected, the devalued and dehumanized. The sick, the dying, the lonely, the outcast.
In our society, this tends to include:
- sex workers
- people of colour
- LGBTQ+ folks
- disabled folks
- people with chronic and/or mental illness
- incarcerated people
- folks experiencing homelessness
- folks struggling with addiction
- single mothers
- children.
They are already favoured by God. They hold the key to Jesus’ Kingdom.
So for those of us who are privileged? We need to get closer to the marginalized. We need to listen to them and learn from them. We need to elevate and emulate them. I need to sit at the feet of these people and just soak in their wisdom.
I may be a mother to a disabled child, but I’m still totally privileged; so I still don’t think I can really grasp Jesus’ Good News. But I’m starting to look to Jesus’ favourite people to see what I can learn from them.
I would like to invite you to join me.
If you are privileged, you need to listen to marginalized people. If you’re only learning about God from other privileged (*ahem* — white, male, straight, middle-class, abled people), you are not getting at the heart of Jesus.
If that seems like an overwhelmingly huge task to take on, start here: commit to following one or two people who belong to marginalized groups on social media. Someone from the LGBTQ+ community, maybe, or a disabled person. Seek a few out and just start listening to their stories. (They absolutely do not have to be Christian.)
Or if you don’t really do social media, commit to reading at least one book by an author who belongs to a marginalized group. Like an immigrant, perhaps, or a Muslim.
(Of course, befriend these people in real life, too. I’m just wary of making a concerted effort to befriend a marginalized person as you risk tokenizing them. Perhaps start by listening so that you will know how to be a good friend when the opportunity arises.)
I have just begun to do this in the last two years and it has been utterly transformative. I finally feel like I’m starting to see the face of Jesus. (In ways I never did going to white Evangelical church.)
I know I have lots of work to do. The first person I am going to look to is one who is already in my life: my son.
He already belongs to Jesus, wholly and fully. I need to become more like him.
* (Yeah, I know you’ve heard it translated “camel” rather than “rope.” That’s probably wrong.)