“The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, ‘I will gather yet others to Him besides those already gathered'” (Isaiah 56:8).
For most of my childhood, most of what I remember is being an outcast. At the tender age of five in Detroit, Michigan, both blacks and whites mistreated me for being biracial, somehow offended that my parents were an interracial couple. I was bullied and beaten up almost every day from white kids, and even emotionally abused by my black kindergarten teacher. From 1st to 10th grade, I was bullied: black kids didn’t like that I “dressed like I was white,” and other kids bullied me because I was in band (especially the football players), or for no reason at all. For whatever reason, I was an easy target.
Even into my adulthood I’ve felt like an outcast. I don’t like the same things most people like, such as sports, public intoxication, obscenities, watching the news, politics, and other things. As such, I’m easily left out of conversations and people sometimes act shifty around me when I say those things don’t interest me. Just like when I was a kid, I prefer to occupy my time with books, writing, photography, music, and video games (that last one especially causes me to be an outcast). I don’t mind so much anymore though, for who cares what they think when I am known by Christ?
It is no wonder, then, that the first time I heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I clung to it like a baby clings to its mother’s teat. Because whereas others reject me for being uncommon, the Lord gathers all outcasts like myself to Him. The Lord says through Isaiah, “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, ‘The LORD will surely separate me from His people'” (v. 3). I’m not a foreigner since I was born in America, but you sure start to feel like one when people treat you like one—like someone who is completely alien. You’d also be surprised how many people think I’m an immigrant (mostly old people) because of the colour of my skin.
Similarly, the Lord says, “‘To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, who choose the things that please Me and hold fast My covenant, I will give in My house and within My walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters'” (vv. 4-5). Having been physically emasculated, eunuchs were put in charge of women’s quarters in ancient Israel; and for obvious reasons, neither could he sire children to perpetuate his name. They were total outcasts. Yet God promises they will have a better name than sons and daughters.
Foreigners and eunuchs are paradigms of the outcast, for who welcomes them? How can they make a name for themselves? Yet the Lord welcomes them. He gives them a better name than sons and daughters—He gives them His name in Baptism: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). All outcasts, therefore, are gathered in Christ, just as He Himself said, “I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me… And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:14, 16). And also, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself” (John 12:32).
In Christ, there is a place for all people, and that includes outcasts. In Christ, the outcast is made known. Even though he may not be known by others, nonetheless he is known by God, King of the universe. That is the notoriety that truly matters—to know Christ and to be known by Him. Furthermore, since the Church is the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 1:22-23), the outcast finds a place in the Church. Yet still, we are much too inept at welcoming the outcast in our churches. We allow unfamiliar and “strange” people to sit alone. We dare not say hello lest they taint our social reputation and make us feel uncomfortable. How dare we. For we were all outcasts—cast out from God’s presence in the Garden. Yet we are promised to see Him face to face (1 John 3:1; Revelation 22:4). If we so desire to see Christ now, let us see Him in our neighbour, who Himself came as an outcast and was cast out of the holy city Jerusalem to die for us, that He might bring our sin that cast us from God’s presence to nothing and raise us from the dead to eternal glory in His presence.
The Lutheran Column 