by Roland Wrinkle
Getting Personal. I’ll never forget it. It is seared in my animated memory. It was my daughter’s eighth birthday and she wanted to have a birthday party at the local ice rink. Ten girls came. And all ten spent the entire “party” avoiding her and isolating her. And… this was the sad norm. My daughter never “fit in.” She grew up as a person who “was different.” She was soon misdiagnosed as suffering from Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. Years later they said she was firmly planted deeply on the Autism Spectrum. There was no question
about it…she was “different.” She just didn’t “fit in.” My brother was sometimes considered a “black sheep.” Millions of Americans, for a whole host of reasons don’t “fit in.” Cultural norms, societal expectations, perceived personal comfort levels, perverse stereotypes, majority definitions, fear and distrust, all coalesce to create a massive class of people, created in the image of God, who tend to get excluded—and are left on the outside.
We All Know About The “Least, The Lost And The Lonely.” As Christ followers, we are all too familiar with what Jesus had to say about the weak, the poor, the disabled, the hungry, the thirsty—what we like to call the “least, the lost and the lonely.” And this is, of course, undeniably true. In Matthew 5, he blessed and exalted, the broken down and broken hearted, those who lose loved ones, the timid, the victims, the persecuted. Women were considered second class citizens at that time. Jesus raised them up and honored them. Children were considered as nothing to be regarded and the lowest of the low. Jesus warned us that we’re not entering his Kingdom unless we come as children.
I’m Talking About Something Different. This is all familiar territory for us. But I really want to discuss something that may sound like these repeated themes, but I think is really something that deserves a separate category: “Those Who Don’t Fit In.” Let me offer some examples of what I’m trying to get at: The socially challenged. The poorly educated. Those with discomforting personalities. Those with body types that fall far from the currently prevailing standard or ideal. Those who dress differently (and, no, I’m not talking about me!). Those who don’t talk like us. Those who don’t look like us. Those with accents we’re not used to. Those from other countries. Those from a “lower” social or economic class. Anybody who for whatever reason seems somehow “strange” or unfamiliar to us. Those who inexplicably make us feel “uncomfortable” or “uneasy.” The peculiar, the divergent, the offbeat, the curious, the odd, the unusual, the atypical, the peculiar, the aberrant—in other words, the “different.”
Evangelical Christians often consider themselves the standard bearers for “family values,” defined as “traditional or cultural values that pertain to the family’s structure, function, roles, beliefs, attitudes, and ideals.” What then of the unmarried, the married with no children, families with nontraditional structures? These become added to the stockpile of “Those Who Don’t Fit In.” In the past (at least), “Those Who Don’t Fit In” included in their ranks women, Europeans (“No Irish need apply”), blacks, non-landowning men (not allowed to vote), any and all immigrants, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians. Currently, we have broadened the scope of those upon whom we bestow “Those Who Don’t Fit In” status to bring into the fold those whose sexual attractions don’t align with most of our sexual attractions, those whose gender self-identification is not what we would consider “biological,” those who dress and act out of alignment with traditional norms…and any and all of those who, for whatever reason, we have decided to be offended by in some way or another and to some degree or another. I firmly believe that this grouping of God’s imagers, “Those Who Don’t Fit In,” while certainly sharing similarities, and sometimes overlapping, with the “The Least, The Last and The Lonely,” should be considered a separate and distinct category of folks who were supremely special to Jesus.
How Did, Does and Will Jesus Regard and Treat “Those Who Don’t Fit In”? What does scripture teach us? It sure seems to me that Jesus really really loved “Those Who Don’t Fit In.” And exalted them. And favored them. And put them above those who “fit in.” And who will enjoy an elevated and glorified status in the coming Kingdom of God. As Jesus shared his last Passover meal with his (rather thick-headed) disciples, he said something to them that is rather remarkable: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.” John 15:18-20. The “world” (code for the currently prevailing, majority culture with its ideas of
what people need to be and do to “fit in”) may exclude any or all of “Those Who Don’t Fit In”… but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because the dominate culture and powers 2000 years ago in Palestine excluded the Son of God as somebody who didn’t fit in. You’re in good (divine) company. What matters is: Do you “fit in” to the Kingdom of God?
A Few Examples, of Many. And here’s some of the folks who didn’t fit in, yet Jesus thought were perfectly suitable to spend eternity with God in his Kingdom when Jesus returns to establish the renewal of all creation:
Lazarus: While Jesus was in Bethany, having diner with a leper, some nondescript , lowly woman intruded to pour some really expensive ointment on Jesus’ head while he was eating, which provoked the anger of the wonderfully blessed male disciples (for wasting money). Jesus’ response? “Wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” Whoa! Higher praise is found nowhere. Similarly, when Jesus was supping with respectable Simon the pharisee, “a woman of the city who was a sinner” (you can’t get further out of the proper social circles than that) came in and started washing, drying and kissing Jesus’ feet. Simon rebuked Jesus for associating with such rabble. In response, Jesus pretty much said, “I’d rather spend my time with her than with you.” Luke 7.36. In fact, Jesus’ disciples included, not just rancid fishermen, but a traitor to his people, an anarchist and a “close friend” who kept denying Jesus and two brothers who were overly concerned about their own place of prominence.
Others belonging to the “Those Who Don’t Fit In” club include: A sore-infested panhandler who competed with the dogs for the rich guy’s table scraps in Luke 16.19. The man with a disgusting skin disease in Mk 1.40. The lame tramp at the Beautiful Gate, bothering anyone and everyone every day in Acts 3.2. The guy in Decapolis who spoke really funny in Mk 7.32. The pagan outsider whose daughter was mentally disturbed in Mk 7.25. The mongrel woman from enemy territory who had five husbands and was cheating on the fifth in John 4. The woman who slept around a bit and was about to be stoned by the respectable, Torah-abiding men in town in John 7.35.
In the Hebrew Testament, widows were at the bottom of the social structure (Job 22.9, 24.3, 24.21). What was Jesus’ attitude towards widows and single mothers? He: defended them Mk 12.40, praised them Mk 12.43, healed them Luke 4.38, honored their requests Mk 10.13, performed miracles for them Luke 7.12, listened to their prayers Luke 18.3, and elevated their needs above the churches Matthew 15.5.
It sure seems that Jesus wasn’t all that enamored of the acceptable, respectable, honored, upright Focus On the Family/ Good Christian Values religious types—and instead huddled, hung out and feasted with “Those Who Don’t Fit In.” Still not convinced? Look at the Parable of the Wedding Banquet in Matt 22, where Jesus compares the Kingdom of God (where we will spend eternity with God) to a wedding celebration thrown by a king for his son. Invitations went out to all the “right and proper” people (the landowners and businessmen), but they turned him down. So he sent out his servants to tell them what a great party it was going to be. They declined
again and went off to their lands and their businesses. The king then told his servants: “’So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find [i.e., including those who don’t fit in].’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.”
Finally, you can’t be more of an outsider than a pagan gentile after Christ’s death…but it was pagan gentiles who soon became the dominate strain of Christ followers. Apparently, the Kingdom of God is going to be loaded with “Those Who Don’t Fit In” i.e., be a surfeit of cultural, social and economic flotsam and jetsam.
Let me leave you with this incomparable quote from the incomparable Russell Moore:
“The kingdom of God turns the Darwinist narrative of the survival of the fittest upside down. When the church honors and cares for the vulnerable among us, we are not showing charity. We are simply recognizing the way the world really works, at least in the long run. The child with Down syndrome on the fifth row from the back in your church, he’s not a ‘ministry project.’ He’s a future king of the universe. The immigrant woman who scrubs toilets every day on hands and knees, and can barely speak enough English to sing along with your praise choruses, she’s not a problem to be solved. She’s a future queen of the cosmos, a joint–heir with Christ. . . . The first step to cultural influence is not to contextualize to the present, but to contextualize to the future, and the future is awfully strange, even to us.”