The People Jesus Is More “At Home” With

The following is a  quote from Jean Vanier’s book “From Brokenness To Community.”

The broken and oppressed are teaching me what the good news is really about.

One of the most moving moments for me in the gospels is the meeting of Jesus with the woman from Samaria. The Samaritans were a very rejected people. The Jews despised them. And this Samaritan woman was rejected and marginalized by her own people as well—for she had lived with five men; she was not living according to the laws of God.

This woman is perhaps one of the poorest, most broken women of the gospels.

When Jesus meets her, he does not tell her to get her act together. Rather, he exposes to her his own need. He says to her: “Give me [something] to drink.” It is good to see how Jesus approaches broken people—not from a superior position but from a humbler, lower position even from his fatigue: “I need you.”

In fact, Jesus seems to be more “at home” with the leper, the publican, the poor and the weak, the children, than with the Pharisee and the rich and the wise.

Those with whom Jesus identifies himself are regarded by society as misfits.

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This post: “To Do Ordinary Things With Extraordinary Love” – featuring Jean Vanier.

This post: “Our Dirty Mess” – from the Misfit Magnet Series.