INTERVIEWER
Jesus message is so appealing not simply because of its content but because of his target audience - which was everyone; rich/poor, men/women, Jew/gentile. In fact, his preferential option for the downtrodden resonates now as it did then. Why did this have such an impact on the people of his time?
ALLEN DWIGHT CALLAHAN
There's a prophetic tradition of Israelite self-understanding that says one day when God restores the fortunes of Israel, he's going to bring everybody, not only the people who are geographically marginal, but the people who are socially marginal. So if you are a self-respecting Israelite prophet who is standing in this tradition, then one of the things that's going to be on your agenda is to reach out to these people, because without them the Kingdom doesn't come. See you don't know that it's really here until the blind see and the lame walk and the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed - everybody's brought into this restored commonwealth. That inclusion is itself a sign that God is at work restoring the fortunes of Israel. So Jesus comes and he does this, and this resonates with all people who've had some kind of experience of marginalization, because in effect it's saying that God doesn't give up on anybody, and that when God is really working, no one is excluded from that embrace.
Everybody may not come. But everybody's included, everyone's invited. And there are always reasons why some people don't get on the A list. There are always reasons for that. And some of those reasons are very compelling and very good, but there's a moment where God intervenes in history, where all discretion goes to the winds when it comes to compiling the A list, and everybody gets on. And when you've got an A list that long, that itself is a sign that God is doing a new thing, as Isaiah put it.
INTERVIEWER
Jesus asked the people of his time to be more compassionate and to love one another. In what way was Jesus' compassion for all people including women, children, the sick and the scorned so radical?
FATHER RICHARD ROHR
You know the only way that you'll understand what's wrong with power is if you're powerless. The only way you'll understand what's wrong with security systems if is if you're temporarily outside of it and insecure. What Jesus did was always take the side of the victim, the excluded, the outsider and read reality from their side which is to understand the real nature of the system. The outsider, the outcast even, with every system of this world holds the secret to really understand what that system is about. It comes as a surprise to most people that when you're inside and enjoying the fruits of any institution or any system, you don't see its idolatries and its perks and privileges because they're supporting you, they're sustaining you and you are enjoying them and I would be too.
The one who's excluded from that system always knows that the system is other than what it says itself to be. Jesus invariably stands with the outsider, with the rejected one and it's there that you learn compassion, it's there that you learn patience, sympathy for failure, for woundedness, for what doesn't work. When you're always on the side of the winner, when you're always on the side of those who are succeeding inside of the system, you never really learn compassion or sympathy or patience or understanding. Someone said that a good way to understand is to stand under and I think it's the only way to understand. To stand underneath, not on the top and that's where Jesus consistently stands. And in that again he is a quite unexpected leader because he never identifies with the leadership - he always identifies with the excluded followers.
