3 min. read
This post first appeared in May, 2016. It is good reminder to us now.
If the person of Jesus is my salvation, then where is Jesus found? In those who are “other” from us, from me. Liberty, freedom, and salvation are in the outsider.
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Insiders Are Outsiders
Peter Rollins calls Christianity the economy of the nobodies where “the only insiders are the outsiders.” Which elicits the question, “Who or what is an outsider?”
I can only define who is an outsider to me. But first, I must define myself.
I am a white, male, straight, lower-middle-class US American, who is well-educated, well-read, and a Jesus follower. There are surely other things that define me, but this is a good start. And these are some things which describe me now, in the present. I cannot ignore that I’m also shaped by my past affinities and so forth.
So, an outsider to me includes: all other ethnicities, females, LGBTQ individuals, the poor, the rich, the uneducated or perhaps under-educated, non-readers, and anyone who doesn’t follow Jesus. This last indicator is perhaps most problematic. I would not identify with institutionalized evangelicals, nor those who hold religion above relationship.
However, let me move on to my point.
Finding Jesus
Jesus is the embodiment of everything the God he called “Father” had been progressively revealing for thousands of years. In the Hebrew scripture, the admonishment to take care of the outsiders (the orphans, the immigrants, and the widows) was a paramount concern. And, wouldn’t you know it, when God steps into a human body, it’s not a member of the religious nor political elite; not a person with means and resources; not an insider of any context of importance.
If we want to find God in Jesus, then we will have to find a bastard child of a poor family, born in the muck of animal shit, apprenticed in a poor worker’s trade, who was homeless and penniless and reviled by the insiders of the political and religious systems.
And this Jesus continued to go to other outsiders, spent most of his time with other outsiders, and led his followers and companions to do the same.
Maybe we aren’t to visit the sick, spend time with prisoners, fend for the orphan, the widow, and the immigrant simply because these are good works of social justice. Maybe we are to spend significant time with outsiders to ourselves because only in them do we find Jesus.
I cannot be saved apart from the outsider.
What Is Salvation?
There is no salvation for me except the salvation found in the outsider Jesus. There is no salvation for me in the religious institution; only in the non-theist. There is no salvation for me in the comfort of white, middle-class society; only in non-white persons of other socio-economic circles. There is no salvation for me in straight-laced, quasi-moral pietists; only my LGBTQ friends. There is no salvation for me in nationalistic American pride; only in the foreigner.
I am compelled to social justice, this is true. But it is not in doing acts of mercy that we find salvation. Rather, it is the relationships formed with those outside ourselves that we find Jesus.
And what is this “salvation” even all about?
Too often we’ve been sold the lie that salvation is a matter of being saved from something: our lesser selves, or “hell.” Maybe salvation is instead about being saved for something outside ourselves.
So if you, like me, identify with the outsider status in some regard, take heart: you are the potential Jesus for someone else.