Pass Us Not, O Gentle Savior

It seems like you’re calling all the straight folks.. all the white folks.. all the privileged folks.. all the religious folks.. all the conservative folks.. all the folks who follow societal norms..

What about us?

The world as it is often creates privilege, power, and opportunity for those who seem relatively “normal” and find themselves in positions of societal privilege — such as straight, white, moderate to conservative, affluent folks. Those people are the ones you see on TV, in the news, in the leadership positions, in the White House, and in the pulpit.

If any of you, like me, were one of the misfit toys of your age group, you probably know what I am talking about here. The kids around you somehow just fit the bill with society. They got the friends. They got the jobs. They got the money. They got the opportunities. As a White person, I got many of those opportunities myself that folks of color didn’t. Of course I didn’t notice and perhaps didn’t care when I was younger, but I really see it now.

The misfits are always passed by while the other folks get called on. That’s the world we seem to live in. The privileged get rewarded and the marginalized get nothing.

But there is good news. Jesus effed things up for the privileged. Now beloved-ness is fair game. Nobody is getting passed by.

Luke 4:18

“18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised…”

As you may notice, even after Jesus spoke these words, folks continued to try to kill off the Gospel and ignore his teachings. The American Christianity we now know often does the same thing. The marginalized get passed by. The poor get pushed to the side. Black folks get pipelined to incarceration. Queer folks get beaten and harassed in the church house.

For this, we mourn together. But we don’t sit on the sideline and wait for good to happen. We continue to preach the gospel. We continue to stand up for the marginalized. We continue to follow Christ’s humble and loving message.

We mourn in our passing by society, but we celebrate that God doesn’t pass by any of us.. even if it seems like it.

God is with us. God is in us. Our Gentle Savior will not pass us by.

God will hear our humble cry.