margins

Seems to me that Jesus walked with grace and kindness and dignifying acceptance on the margins of the culture in which he lived and loved. He was a friend of sinners and tax collectors, of women and paupers, of fishermen and possessed, of the desperately ill and the desperately broken. When he was with them he was always challenging their assumptions about God and spirituality and worth and value. 

Not that he avoided large groups of churchies. He hung with them enmasse at times too. And when he did he challenged their tightly held assumption and rote truth. Sometimes they were astounded by the obvious authority with which he spoke and amazed by the miracles that followed his presence. Many would follow, then fall away, and seemingly unaffected by his wavering fame he would turn once again to the marginalised and ignored.

Whoever he was with and however big or small the crowd was he was always challenging their assumptions about themselves and God.

I reckon he had a pretty simple message for anyone who would really listen and I reckon it went something like this. "Your better than that! Your life is worth more than that! You can live in the dignity of being a child of God and live out of the righteousness being won for you rather than the brokenness being imposed on you".

And then he showed them and us how to live it out.