People on the Margins
God’s concern for the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor that we heard about in the 1st Reading is also His concern for you!
The gods (small ‘g’) that the ancient world worshipped were concerned with great people:
the mighty and cunning…. the strong and the gorgeous.
The rest of humanity served as just a backdrop:
inconsequential players in the grand plans of kings, generals, and deities.
Not so with the God of the Bible.
And we can see God’s strange interest in the people on the margins written upon just about every page of Scripture:
- it was evident in His selection of a nation of slaves to be his special people;
- it echoed in his choice of sheep-tenders to be the first to hear news of the Incarnation;
- but perhaps nowhere do we see this curious reality more clearly than in God’s passion for the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor...
We may miss how odd it actually is because we live in a culture that has been shaped by Christian assumptions.
And although it is often violated….to care for the weak and vulnerable remains a noble Western virtue.
This generally wasn’t the case in the cultures that surrounded the Jewish communities at the time of Christ.
Ancient Roman societies typically saw weakness as unworthiness to live.
Roman culture during Jesus’ time would drown children who at birth were weakly or abnormal.
Consider then the marvel of a God who not only tolerates the feeble and lowly…… but places special premium on defending and caring for them.
What a contrast!
And we see God continually expressing profound concern for the least potent and self-sufficient:
- The Law describes, “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow ...” (Deuteronomy 10:18).
- The Prophets echo the same truth: “For in you the fatherless find compassion” (Hosea 14:3b).
- And, again, in the psalms, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families ...” (Psalm 68:5-6).
The readings today call us to see the truth of God’s “father-heart”.
His heart beats not only for the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor.…but for each of us as well:
- He pursues us when we are destitute and alone….or even in sin;
- He adopted us as his children at our Baptism;
- He invites us to call him “Abba” and to live as his daughters and sons.
Of course, we must not miss the fact that St. Paul in the 2nd Reading calls us to do the same for others.
We are to live out “pure and faultless religion” (James 1:27) by caring for others in their distress.
Because as we do this…. we reveal God’s heart to the world.
When we care for others …. we model the fact that the Almighty cares passionately for the least.
And in the process, we experience God’s heart more deeply ourselves as well — a peculiar, marvelous love for the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor.
A peculiar, marvelous love….for each of us.