Do Church – Serving People on the Margins

1. In the slide showing we see the main text, and someone has scribbled a lot of notes. If we take the Bible, many people write in the margins of their Bibles. However, the main text is what is of importance. If I had to write notes, they would be important to me, but for someone else the main text (Scripture) would be the important part.
2. What do we mean when we talk about “People on the Margins”. It’s people who have been pushed to the sides for various reasons. To be “Marginalized” is to treat people or someone as if they are of no importance, and many people feel that way and surely many of us have felt that way in certain situations. Women sometimes feel that way because of how society treats them, or it can be our skin colour, or we lack a fancy education, or not a lot of money or our personality.
3. There are many people who live in the margins. But, each person is valuable in God’s eyes, created in His image. It’s easy to love those who love you, and honestly some people are harder to love. We as Christians must understand that all people are equally valuable. If Jesus had prioritized a particular group of people, who would it have been? I think it would be those who are marginalized. Jesus didn’t have much to do with the elites of society.
4. Luke 4:18-19. When Jesus began His public ministry, He was handed Isaiah’s scroll to read in a Synagogue, which was actually His Mission on Earth. (Good news for the poor, etc.) The religious people were waiting for Messiah, for a strong Saviour to save them and liberate them from their oppressors (The Romans at the time), but Jesus looked more at the marginalized. The people mentioned in the verses He read, were suffering under diverse conditions, poor, blind, oppressed, prisoners, etc., slaves to the rulers and this is why they were marginalized. People who were Lepers were forced to live outside of society and Jesus says that these are the people He was there to save. Jesus healed them and restored them back into society.
5. There was the year of Jubilee, where properties were restored to their former owners, debts were cancelled, prisoners were set free – a year where people were restored who had been suffering, a healing of individuals and for the whole community. God demands righteousness and justice and Jesus said that now is the time. It’s not just about our hope of going to heaven sometime, but our churches are communities of hope. God wants to heal and to restore each one of us, to set us free from things that burden us.
6. Mary, Jesus’ mother sang a beautiful song in Luke 1:46-53, that God has lifted up the humble, filled the hungry. Jesus wanted to end the marginalization of people in His day. It certainly was good news for the poor, the sick, to the marginalized. Jesus spoke sternly but with love to those who had power – there was a call to repentance and for many it meant a change of ways.
7. As a church we often tell the marginalized to repent, because they may be doing something wrong. If we are marginalized, it’s easy for us to marginalize others even further because it feels good. God certainly doesn’t want that. When we know that we are loved, it restores us. Sometimes we need to be brought off our high horses and other times we need to be lifted up, knowing that God loves us all equally.
8. Matthew 25:42-43, “Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for Me”. Jesus is identifying with the marginalized, saying that He is one of them. Whatever you do or don’t do, it is for Me. Jesus came to live a simple life among simple people. Like refugees who are marginalized even to the point of wanting them dead.
9. Sometimes we all are marginalized and we are tempted to marginalize others even further. The good news is that God wants to draw us all into the center. God is where the marginalized are. If we see others as marginalized, we need to repent and see them as loved as anyone else. 1 Corinthians 1: 26-27, Paul tells them to remember where they came from, that they were marginalized. But God wanted to build something good out of them, and He invites us to be a part of that ministry, to serve those on the margins. We need to hang out with those people because God is there. We as a church are often glad when some famous person comes to our church, but I don’t think Jesus would view it in the same way. It all starts with the overwhelming love of God. If we know that God loves us in this way, we can only love others in the same way.
10. So, God calls us to receive from Him and go out and love those who love us and those who seem unlovable and that will bring blessing in our lives. So, let’s go out and serve those who are marginalized, where Jesus is, where He is touching people.