Was Jesus sent only to nice people
Those accepted by their own as like us
To make life on our own terms easier?
Or was he sent to the bothersome
The dirty, the poor, the troublemakers
To those by their own people discarded?
The untouchable lepers Jesus touched
Those shunned for their contagious uncleanness
Being made to warn others they were coming
Because their very presence could defile
Jesus approached and by his touch made clean
They were cleansed, and Jesus not made dirty.
The poor woman by twelve years in her blood
Defiled, so that none could be in her place
To touch or even sit where she had sat
Snuck up to Jesus so she could touch him
She touched and was healed, fully restored
Jesus gave her his peace without reproof.
Jesus received the outpouring of love
Given him by the immoral woman
In front of the Pharisee who despised
All of her kind, but did what he would not
Bathing Jesus’ feet with perfume and tears
Forever is her kindness remembered!
In that foreign woman from Phoenicia
To whose people Jesus had not been sent
Who asked healing for her afflicted son
Knowing that the Jews saw her as a dog
Jesus saw faith greater than that of all
His own people, and granted her request.
Jesus’ people had hated the whole race
Of the woman at the well a long time.
Samaritans returned the Jews’ hate, too.
And the woman was an adulteress.
But the woman found the water of life
Jesus gave her to share with her people.
Levi the tax collector, who was shunned
And hated for defrauding his people
That same Levi Jesus called away from
His tax booth to follow him for three years
Taught him to follow as his disciple
And gave Matthew the book we all still read.
With tax collectors who for the hated
Romans robbed their own people
Jesus sat and ate and offered pardon
A place with him for those who believed him
And to him turned from seeking their profit
So he took their shame before the people.
Jesus was himself by his own discarded
Hung naked on a cross where all his shame
All my shame all the world might clearly see
Yet he kept for the thief who believed him
Though for his own bloody crime put to shame
This day, the hope of seeing paradise.
And, Oh! That murderous Pharisee Saul
Caused so many saints to be put to death
Surely he is one all of us should shun!
To that same Saul came the risen Jesus
Appeared visibly in all his glory
Accepting Paul as one of his Apostles!
As one also shunned as too much trouble
Lord, teach me to comfort the discarded
To take on myself your shame, not my own
Touching in love the hated and the shamed
Those shunned because they don’t seem just like us
Or, like me, they others too much bother.
© 2025 by Ian Bruce Johnson
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