“From the very beginning and throughout the Bible, God’s privileged one is consistently the enslaved instead of the supposed free, the outsider instead of the insider, the sinner instead of the righteous, the wounded instead of the healthy, the lay instead of the clergy, the poor instead of the rich. I dare you to try to disprove that.”
No Guarantees 
As soon as you say “sinner instead of the righteous” you exclude everyone.
“exclude”? i think you mean “include”????
i think the point of rohr’s quote is to show the upside down principles of God’s kingdom – that it is not those who would be recognised as worthy – but rather those who would be outcasts (both in the eyes of the world and themselves) 1 cor 1 & 2 give a pretty good back drop to this quote.
Yes, i think Bergs made a woopsie, you did mean Include…i’m sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Bergs made a whoopsie, you know what I mean!!! :]
Yes I did mean “include” but I disagree that God’s priviledged one is only the supposed free, the outsider, the wounded, the poor. What about King David, Solomon, there is plenty of examples that would prove otherwise. If you know Christ then you are an adopted son/daughter of the King and that makes you priviledged, not your bank account or physical state. If thats the case then lets resign from our jobs, sell our houses and join Scottys new “Fight Club” and beat the snot out of each other and then sit down together in our pain and talk about how privileged we are.
i guess if you look at david’s beginnings – forgotten by his father out in the field when the prophet came looking for the new king, because he didn’t fit the “acceptable/desirable qualities” in a king; and solomon – well, apart from being born into royalty, the guy definitely used his privileges to stray quite far in his searchings for “meaning”.
but God is good, who chooses to move towards us when we are unrighteous (romans – he loved us when we were unloveable aka “his enemies”). i reckon david and solomon are great examples of this rohr quote
I’m not saying God loves the poor because they are good, or better, or best, but rather because he is all of these things.
Vawz – I’m not sure I get what your saying, help me out grasshopper master…
Vawz – I don’t think I get what your saying, help me grasshopper master…
I guess I just don’t like the idea that God’s love and expression of that love is based on my particular situation – poor or rich, sick or healthy.
excuse double up of comments, my bad
It is hard to read the scriptures without reading a clear bias God has, and asks us to have, with regards to the marginalised, the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden, the ‘underlings, like Children etc.
I agree… but I couldn’t make it an absolute as I think this quote nearly does. There is too many actions on God’s behalf that could be interpreted as the exact opposite.
True, I guess you just can’t tie that God down to a statement from Dickie Rohr! He much bigger!
I read that comment just now. Stared at it for about 5 minutes. It’s things like this that make me hate being a Christian sometimes because it is just easier to say Jesus thinks me wanting to be rich, famous and popular is true. But then *if* I stay with it, Jesus becomes all the more beautiful.