Richard Rohr

The point that must be remembered is that most of political and church history has been controlled and written by people on the Right because they are normally the people in control. One of the few subversive texts in history, believe it or not, is the Bible. The Bible is a most extraordinary text because again and again, it legitimates not the people on the top, but invariably the people on the bottom or those who move toward those on the bottom-from Abraham to Moses to Jeremiah to Job to John the Baptist to Jesus. It has taken an amazing degree of denial and selective attention to miss this quite obvious alternative pattern.

After a while you might get tired of the rejected son, the younger son, the barren woman, the sinner, the outsider always being the chosen one of God! It is the Biblical pattern-which we prefer not to see. It takes away our power to exclude “the least of the brothers and sisters” because that is precisely where Jesus says he is to be found (Matthew 25:40)! If indeed women, blacks, other religions, gays, and other “outsiders” are “least” in our definition, it seems that gives them in fact a privileged and revelatory position! They are not to be excluded but honoured. Jesus takes away from us any possibility of creating any class system or any punitive notion from religion. Unfortunately, thus far, it has not worked very well.

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