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Philly Leadership Team Blog
Good News for the Marginalised?
Posted by Nick Allan on 11th October 2012
‘“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus was a poor man, certainly for the last 3 years of his short life. He started life with his family seeking political asylum from a regional superpower. He ended his life humiliated and naked by a city rubbish dump. For those last years, much of the time he was a marginalised man.
Yet, his life’s purpose was to re-write the script for others who find themselves in similar situations. Jesus proclaims that the good news he carries (yesterday, today and forever) means good news for the marginalised. In quoting this iconic passage from Isaiah, he deliberately left out perhaps the most favourite line to his Jewish listeners ‘the day of vengeance of our God’ (Is. 61:2). They were waiting for God to get His own back on their oppressors, on the ‘unclean’ and people ethnically different from them. But Jesus says in this new scene of God’s drama on earth it’s not acceptable to be a good religious person anymore and leave it at that. It’s not acceptable to carry on without a concern for the poor and marginalised. Especially if your religious activity actually has the effect of oppressing and hurting those groups.
So we have to ask ourselves: ‘Is my life good news for the marginalised?’
We’re carriers of the kingdom of God. We share Jesus’ mandate to be good news. We also share his potential. There is nothing to be afraid of since we live in the ‘year of the Lord’s favour.’
This means I’m equipped and I’m called to be good news for the marginalised.
But does my attitude, even my Christian lifestyle unintentionally get in the way? It could be in many small things, like holding on to a sense of the ‘deserving poor’ which stops me giving to those I judge to be undeserving. Or am I so busy sharing the good news with people like me that I accidentally communicate bad news to those who are marginalised from me, or from society?
The gospel means the marginalised matter. It means that those who society, and maybe even religions, call marginalised actually are not. They are not marginalised from the kingdom of God, actually the kingdom comes very close to people like this. In heaven there will be no ‘in-crowd’. Because in God’s kingdom there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female – Christ makes us all one (Gal 3:28).
So I’m called to a response – through movement – through getting involved – through turning compassion into passion.
And I’m to do it like Jesus did - treating the poor and outcast with dignity and compassion. As often as he turned to a rich man, or religious man, a respectable man or woman, he also turned to the shouty man, the irritating man, the disreputable woman, the despised tax collecting collaborator, the blind beggar.
What about you? How can you be good news to the marginalised this week, this month?
Comments
Comment by Takdir on 1.22pm 28th October 2012 I was stcruk by the honesty of your posting
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