I attended a workshop this week that addressed the idea of Christians needing to have solidarity with the marginalized, and how that played a role in our spiritual formation. During the session, someone asked a question about what a Christian should do when their efforts to help the marginalized are rejected. A million thoughts flooded my brain. I wanted to laugh at that question, while at the same time, my eyes began to fill with tears. A million thoughts. A million raw, angry, hurt, broken-hearted thoughts.
What to do when our efforts are rejected by the marginalized. Where to start to begin to answer this? Initially, I just want to scream because we Christians (what I really mean is me) are so selfish, we make everything about ourselves. The world is full of people who are suffering and we want to know what to do when those who are suffering reject our efforts to help. Here’s what we do: we quit making this about us, we keep trying to help, or maybe we accept that they don’t want our help and we leave them be in peace instead of trying to control them. Actually, I don’t know what we do. But this isn’t the part of the question i care about. It’s just the part that triggered me. Initially.
Let me back up to the topic of this workshop (which was really a good workshop, despite how I might have been triggered by this question). Solidarity with the marginalized. The marginalized. For the purpose of this workshop, the assumption was made that the marginalized meant those people who were suffering in one way or another. People living in povery, people suffering from abuse, people caught up in addiction, people with mental illness, etc. People who by the definition of middle class american culture, were considered on the “margins” of society. This assumes that the core of society, those who live in the the middle of our imaginary diagram, are the ones who don’t suffer, the ones who are considered well funtioning. The ones who have jobs, homes, good health, etc. And the people who don’t live like that, such as the homeless, the drug addicts, and the convicts, they are living on the margins, which is why we get to refer to them as marginalized. Because the unspoken goal of this imaginary diagram, is those of us living in the core should be attempting to help those who live in the margins, trying to fix them so they can live in the core like we do. And let me clarify that our speaker never said anything close to this, these are just the ramblings in my head that were triggered by the simple question another participant asked.
So here’s my issue: while we might have this definition of the marginalized according to the middle class american culture, what if we changed the backdrop? What if instead, we tried to define the marginalized in the kingdom of God? What would that look like? I don’t think it would look at all like the imaginary diagram I described above. In fact, I think the core might be filled with the same people we define as marginalized in our worldview.
It takes my memory back to my twenties, when i had the opportunity to visit several other countries through short term mission experiences. I remember being in the streets of Haiti, playing with children who lived in extreme poverty. Children who lived in one room homes with dirt floors, who had no toys, and yet lived days full of laughter and joy. They were being raised by parents who were so in love in Jesus that they rose early every day, before the sun, to gather together to pray for others, lamenting loudly in the streets, filling the air with their prayers and their praises. The children spent their days playing on the streets and attending one room schoolhouses, doing chores. But they were happy and full of joy, loving Jesus. And I think of the kids I knew back home. They had all kinds of material possessions, yet most were not nearly as happy as these kids I watched in Haiti.
And then i remember the orphanage I visited in India. We attended a performance that the kids put on and then had the opportunity to interact with the kids and other adults for awhile afterwards. I remember talking to one of the adults who was also at the performance, and found myself explaining our system of foster care in the United States. How we have worked so hard to not have orphanages because we believe children thrive in a family environment. And yet, as I listened to myself explaining this, I was watching these kids at the orphanage, full of laughter, well behaved, attached to their caregivers at the home, and arguably, doing quite well. And then I thought about the kids I knew in foster care, and the many struggles they have. I remember thinking that maybe our way isn’t the best way afterall.
Those were some of the first experiences that began to shape my understanding of the differences between the values/goals/purposes of the kingdom of God compared with those of the culture in which I was being raised.
Within my professional life, I am a part of many conversations about the marginalized, and as a secular business I always understand who that term is referring to, those living on the margins of the core of todays society. But in a Christian setting, I think this definintion probably changes significantly if we are looking at the world through the framework of God’s kingdom. In God’s kingdom, the core is more likely to consist of those whose souls are purely devoted to Jesus, and they would likely include many who live in poverty, many who exist in suffering, many who would be defined as marginalized in a secular sense. Because the very nature of the things that make them marginalized in our culture, the things that cause suffering in their lives, may be the very things that draw them closer to God, and bring them to exist at the core in the God’s kingdom. Maybe the marginalized in God’s kingdom are the people like me, the ones whose focus is less on Jesus and more on paying my mortgage, achieving success in my career, accumulating clutter that keeps me distracted. If that’s true, and I kind of think it’s probably at least close to being true, then what right do I have to be upset when I am rejected when I offer help to those who are suffering? I might be the one who needs help, at least in a spiritual sense, more than anyone.
I still have a million thoughts about this, and about the act of being rejected when we offer help to those in need. As someone who has people in her life who struggle with addiction, I consider myself a bit of an expert in failure and rejection when it comes to offering help. If anything, it’s been a great opportunity for God to teach me that I don’t have all the answers, that my way isn’t necessarily the best way, and that I cannot control others. I have so much to learn. And so many more thoughts, for another time.
Show Me the Way 