Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19
Romans 15.4-13
Matthew 3.1-12
The story of salvation is a history of outsiders, of people who live lives on the margins of their world. It is the story of people who do not quite fit in; and because they do not quite fit in, they offer their contemporaries a different perspective on the events of the world; they offer an insightful and even prophetic view of the world in which they live. From the old barren couple, Abram and Sarai, out of whom is established a great nation, to Joseph, despised by his brothers, who saves his family from starvation; from the two Hebrew slaves – Shiphrah and Puah – the two midwives that save Moses who in time leads to freedom all the Hebrew slaves, to Jepthah an outlaw and the son of a prostitute whose power and insight as judge over the Hebrew people helps to mould the band of escaped slaves into a nation; from the foreign widow Ruth, who is to be the ancestor of King David, to David himself, the youngest of the sons of Jesse — the least likely to amount to anything – who is chosen to be king over God’s chosen people. All of these – and many more figures of salvation history – come from the margins of the social order. They come from groups in society which are never in the centre, but instead have always been relegated to the edges – immigrants, foreigners, slaves, women, the illegitimate, the powerless.
And yet, they carry with them what I have come to call and know as the “gift of the outsider”. Because they are not invested in protecting or perpetuating a position in the centre of the social structures, they can see the world in which they live more critically. Because they stand on the edges of the social order, they can see both inside and outside its boundaries. Because they live on the very margins, they can see something new coming long before any at the centre can. Let me try and show you what I mean. Close your eyes and imagine a circle. At its centre is a great crowd of people. At its edge stands one person. Who has a wider field of vision, a person living in the very middle of the circle – in the very middle of the that great crowd – or the person on the edge? Who will see something new coming into the circle first? Who realises more readily that there is a reality beyond the circle as well as within it? The person in the centre cannot probably see the edge of the circle, much less beyond it. The person on the edge can see both into the circle and out of the circle. That is the gift of the outsider – the ability to see from a wider perspective because of where they stand, the freedom to question the structures at the centre because they know that there is more to reality than simply those structures at the centre. That is the ‘gift of the outsider’. That is the gift that those on the edges can bring to the centre, if those in the centre are willing to receive it.
John the Baptist is in that great tradition of those who live on the margins, and thereby have a clearer picture of the situation around them. He is introduced to us in the gospel of the Matthew with these words: “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea.” (Matthew 3:1) Physically, he lived on the edges of the inhabited areas; socially he lived on the edges as well, clearly away from the centre of religious and political power in Jerusalem. His dress and habits — a camel’s hair coat and his diet of locusts and honey — further made him a person on the edge, one who would most definitely be ostracised from polite society. And his message to the centre was this proclamation: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”; “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:3) What a message! We who are so used to hearing those words can fail to appreciate their impact the first time they were heard. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:3) That is the gift that he offers to the centre. That is the insight which he has gained from living at the edges of the circle, the knowledge that has come to him as an outsider. It is a dangerous message. It is not a message that those at the centre will hear, or even want to hear. Why? Because, if the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then surely their kingdom – their way of running things and the benefits which they gain from it is near its end. The voice of the one crying out in the wilderness – the voice of the one on the margins – is never the voice that those in the centre are willing to hear. Yet it is the voice of the outsider which in the Judaeo-Christian tradition certainly and consistently seems to convey to their contemporaries the purposes of God, whether their fellows want to the hear them or not. The figures from the Hebrew Scriptures I mentioned earlier each come from the margins of their world, and each brought threatening, but inestimable gifts to that world. Likewise John the Baptist brings to his world the promise that God’s kingdom is at hand, and while it is a threatening promise to those who are in control, it is a sign of great hope to others who find themselves on the margins of their world; and surely for this reason people from “Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan.” (Matthew 3:5) Those who flocked to hear John and his message were also those who found themselves living on the edges of their society.
Like the Hebrew Scriptures, so too the New Testament is full of figures from the edges; and they are most poignantly visible in the stories surrounding Advent, Christmas and the Epiphany. Not just John the Baptist, but Joseph the peasant carpenter pushed around by powerful government and regulations. There is Mary, the young unwed mother, surely at the bottom of the social pecking order; Elizabeth and Zechariah, the old barren parents of John the Baptist; the shepherds, the lowest of the low in the society of the ancient near-east; the two senior citizens, Simeon and Anna, who, regardless of their dim eyes, had the keenest vision of all at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Even the wise men from the east who came to offer their extravagant gifts were foreigners, and therefore would have few rights in the kingdom of King Herod. Each of these, while – in fact because – they lived at the borders of their world, were able to see what God was doing more clearly than those at the centre. They offered the gift of their vision to the centre – the political and religious establishment – and were met with ridicule, persecution and even death. Yet it did not make their message and vision any less real, neither did it diminish the blessings the message brought when it was eventually heeded.
Those who on account of their race or gender, who on account of their sexual orientation or age, who on account of their legal or marital status, live on the margins of society, share in a great tradition and always offer a special gift to our world. Because they live on the edges they often have the ability to see things in liberatingly new ways. Because the structures at the centre rarely support them, they are not so keen in preserving them, and so their vision often has scope for radical and refreshing novelty. Because they already don’t belong, as it were, they can risk including everyone. As we journey through Advent and prepare ourselves to “greet with joy the [second] coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer”, it behoves us to remember how it was those at the centre of things who missed his first coming altogether, or even actively opposed it, and how it was those at the margins who recognised him. After all, isn’t it the woman (or man) at the very the edges of the town who sees the dawn first and most clearly?
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