Jesus’ Mission to the Marginalized

The People Jesus Reached

Jesus didn’t have any problem reaching people.

Do you know why? He specifically targeted those that nobody else bothered going after. Regionally, he targeted dirty, redneck Galileans, Samaritans. Occupationally, Jesus had a thing for fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes, and Roman soldiers. Jesus also went after the marginalized; those who fell through the cracks. Women, demoniacs, and lost causes.

Stop and think about the vast numbers of people who will never darken the doors of the churches that exist in your city. Now ask yourself why.

Once you’ve answered that question, you’re halfway to understanding who your church is called to go after, what part of the city it’s called to go to, and what it’s called to do. Everything from the location it meets in, to the time it meets, what people do when they get there, to the way the room is set up will all come into play. I’d say that for the most part, everybody plants a cookie cutter version of church with hipper music, sexier graphics, and skinnier jeans, thinking that will really reach people. But have you ever noticed that “the stuff Christians like” are often worlds apart from what a lost person really notices or desires when they come to a point of honestly seeking God?

The People Reached Out to Jesus

Jesus may have gone after the marginalized, but more importantly, the marginalized flocked to him. Jesus saw the down and outs, outcast from society, lost, helpless, and harassed like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus was a man of sorrows because he was the man who knew too much. Solomon observed that more knowledge brought more grief. It increased Jesus’s burdens, and after all, he came to bear them. He was the suffering servant who took others’ burdens upon his own shoulders. He carried our sorrows, bore our afflictions, and was bruised for our iniquities.

The same Jesus who crumpled in a heap in front of Lazarus's tomb was a Jesus who was wrecked by the consequences and pain that sin causes. The Jesus who sat on a donkey in the midst of a riotous crowd chanting his name and bellowing prophesies about him, was a Jesus unmoved by their desire to that day make him King. Weeping as his face flooded tears, he was emotionally moved and destroyed Jesus, as his heart saw the hard bitten determination of unbelief, and their resulting destruction in A.D. 70. He had come to suffer for them, not to rule over them.

Reaching with Grace

The church has always struggled to understand God’s grace. Many Christians still think that it enables people to get away with murder, rather than catalyzing a person from the inside out. They fear that grace means the lowering of standards. Although God has never indicated that His definition of sin has changed, our lives may not be completely stitched up this side of heaven. Marginalized people – the poor, homeless, LGBT, immigrant communities, etc. – come in with a lot of baggage and their transformation isn’t instantaneous.

Jesus modeled reaching out to the Samaritans by sitting with the woman at the well. John tells us “And he had to pass through Samaria.” Had to? It was miles out of his way, but if Jesus did, we do too.

The disciples were scandalized by the fact Jesus was having anything to do with her because a.) she was a samartian, and b.) because she was a she. They were further scandalized that he was holding a conversation with her.

How are we going to reach the unreached if, being honest, we don’t even want to be seen with them? Think of the unspoken rules your own church might have about who does or doesn’t belong. When someone from, for example, the LGBT community walks through the doors of the church, our approach is crucial. If our first question is “Are you going to stop?” we become spiritual TSA agents, erecting metal detectors and demanding that they empty their pockets of everything sinful before we let them through. It’s the only time that we make sin a barrier at the gateway. To everyone else we extend God’s grace and clearly explain that God will receive, forgive, and cleanse. We emphasize that they’ve been given the righteousness of Christ, and that sanctification will follow along their journey. Not so here. We want a pound of flesh. We want to ensure that they don’t try to sneak something lethal on board that might explode the airplane. Like Jesus told the Pharisees, we shut the door of the kingdom in people’s faces and prevent them from entering.

Extending Invitations to Follow Jesus

In contrast, Jesus invited scandalous sinners to follow him. Although it seemed a simple, unrestricted invitation, there was an implicit recognition of Jesus’s complete mastery over every area of life. Like leaven, it would infiltrate every area of the follower’s life; but it would happen on the way. Remember as was the case with the disciples, and ourselves, it is more the journey with Jesus that facilitates our transformation than our initial introduction to him. Who can pinpoint the moment at which the twelve were truly converted on their journey with Jesus? After walking with individuals from the LGBT community, I’m convinced that transformed lives result from going on a journey with Jesus, not from making an instantaneous decision…just like heterosexuals.

We want purity in the church, and we may have it, but at what price? We have our clean, orderly, sterile churches, and as a result, the world is kept out. If God himself made his grand entry into a slurry-soaked stable that reeked of crap, then I’m pretty sure we can handle lesbians holding hands in church as they hear the gospel.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic work Life Together, quotes Martin Luther; “Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes.” When the churches I plant are most effectively reaching the community, Sunday mornings smell like alcohol. Lesbians sit in our midst holding hands. Some are visually withdrawing from substances. In order to reach people, you’ve got to be willing to be patient.

Evangelicals have always place conversion before discipleship, equating the unconverted as outsiders, but I’ve found that discipleship starts from the moment that we come into contact with someone. Conversion happens somewhere along the way. This shift in approach has been the key strategy to fulfilling the great commission, and consequently preaching peace to those that are afar off.

This article is adapted from Reaching the Unreached by Peyton Jones. Used with permission.