The Glocal Church

I often ask myself these questions: “In my vocational ministry, do I aspire to make the headlines or go to the margins?” “Do I seek to gain favor by those in my congregation and by my peers, with accolades and praises, or do I want to go to the margins, a place where many of  life’s outcast, the hurting, and those whom our society have deemed unlovable often migrate?”

In providing an honest assessment, I must confess, I more often seek the headlines or the praises and accolades by those important to me and the ministry in which God has blessed me. I rarely venture out to the margins, where real and hurting people reside. People who so desperately need to know the Hope of Glory that resides in me.  I’m not proud of this badge I wear. In fact, I’m terribly ashamed, because I more often seek man’s approval over Christ’s direction for my life.

With that confession I must ask the question…not: “What would Jesus do?” bur rather “Where would Jesus go?” God’s Word is very clear on this. Jesus always went out of his way to go to the margins of life, where the sinners of His day took up residence. The Gospels chronicle this in detail. John Chapter 8, describes the adulteress who was caught in adultery and facing an assured stoning by her accusers. However, Jesus disarmed her accusers and forgave her. Also, John Chapter 4 describes the Samaritan women at the well, who was living a life of promiscuity.  Jesus met her at the well in the middle of the day. It was a well where no Samaritans and sinners like her went at peak hours, but at mid-day, when the well was not crowded. Jesus met her there and provided her living water in Him, that if anyone drank from, they would never suffer spiritual thirst again.

The Gospels go on to descriptively detail how Jesus always ventured to the margins, with tax collectors, thieves, and lepers, among many others. Those which their society shunned as “sinners,” “unclean,” and “unlovable,” even those whom the religious leaders of the day referred to as “scum,” Matthew 9:11 (NLT).

Jesus was not concerned at all with making the headlines. In fact John 7:4 states “No one does anything in secret while he’s seeking public recognition.” Also, in  Matthew Chapter 6, Jesus was recorded saying: “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”  

Nevertheless, Jesus assuredly made the headlines quite often. Those headlines probably read something like: “This Jesus is a Friend of Sinners!”  What the religious leaders of the day meant as an insult, I believe Jesus wore as a badge of honor, “Friend of Sinners!”