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318 ˜ A Work of Hospitality, 1982–2002
have been labeled the most unredeemable, the one who could never be rehabilitated.
But there was no popular vote, because God knows we don’t do a very
good job of understanding. We keep thinking that we can say who’s unredeemable
and beyond the pale. So nobody was consulted. God knocked Paul off
his path, struck him blind, and sent him into the somewhat reluctant arms of
the amazed sisters and brothers of the Damascus church.
Like those members of the Damascus church who claimed Paul as their
brother, we don’t have to be afraid to say that Willie Horton is our brother,
anymore than we should fear claiming the Soviets as our sisters. Our foremothers
and forefathers remind us that God can deliver us out of the jaws of fear and
set our feet on the wide, promised land of freedom.
When we receive the grace of that freedom, our life and our doctrine become
one. When we receive that grace, we walk the way of the Prince of Peace,
who walks with us and shepherds us to bring good news to the poor, liberty to
the captives, recovery of sight to the blind; to set free the oppressed; and to announce
that the time has come when God will save her people.
Walk together, children. Don’t get weary. God wills goodness for all children
of the earth. God promises justice. God’s purposes are for peace. May it be
so even among us.
Marginality: Life on the Edge, by Ed Loring
J a n u a r y 1 9 8 6
Jesus Christ calls us to follow him. He lived on the edge of society, at the
edge of the systems of the world. He was a marginal man, and Jesus calls us to
be marginal women and men in our lives as we follow him.
The first way that we move to the margin is the call to live by love. This love
is an active love as harsh and dreadful as the cross of Christ. This love is finally
and fully tested and achieved as we love those who are closest to us (the community)
and those who are the farthest (our enemies).
The world operates through force and is divided by hate and fear. To live by
love is to move out of the airstream of the world, to the margin. On the margin
one is called a fool, unrealistic, a judgmental person, self-righteous, sick, lazy,
and maladjusted. This is just as the Bible says it would be.
To follow Jesus is to begin to love and to find the basis of our lives in relation
to others in love. Active love bears fruit. Marginal love is a sociological reality.
The second dimension of the marginality of discipleship is the call to be-