Jesus heals a man with an evil spirit in Luke 4, in today’s society an evil spirit would be possibly seen as a mental illness so this man was rejected from society. However Jesus treated him showing love and care. Jesus’ attitude was caring and he showed a want to care for the man. His treatment was caring and very personal.
Another example of Jesus’ care towards outcasts was when he healed a Leper. A leper was the most feared outcast because it was an unknown disease and many people were scared of lepers and lepers were rejected to live in the desert. Jesus shows willing to help cure the leper and he puts his own health on the line because of his commitment to treat the leper. Jesus showed love and compassion in treating the leper in treating the leper as an equal, which was extremely uncommon. Jesus’ love was emulated by the way that he went down to the lepers as if he wanted to heal them, and not the other way round, as Jesus proclaimed to be the suffering servant and he lowered himself to the lepers which was uncommon. Jesus’ attitude was loving, committed and compassionate.
Another example of love is the parable of the Good Samaritan, it is possibly the most frequently told passage and it involves many respected members of society turning down an outcast. He was eventually cared for by a Samaritan who showed an immense amount of love towards an outcast, which he did not have to do at all. I think Jesus tells this story in the hope that many would take this message on board and care and show love to people regardless of their status.
In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus says that possessions are not everything, as a good man who was poor went to heaven and a mean man who was rich went to hell. I think this is important to outcasts as it states that material needs are not everything and it is what is inside that is important in heaven.
Overall I think that the amount of dedication and care shown by Jesus towards outcasts was unique. It not only proved a huge point towards society at the time, but his holistic care for outcasts inspired today's Christians and as a result has allowed them to form charities which support the outcasts in our society.
A02: Who are the outcasts in our society and to whom should Christians show compassion?
In our society, there are many sets of people who would be classed as outcasts for different reasons. In this question I will explain about the outcasts in our society and attempt to explain why they are classed as outcasts.
An example of a group of people who are outcasts are the homeless, homeless people are usually excluded from society because they appear to look ‘scruffy’ and dirty. Homeless people make the streets look unclean and there are a lot of stereotypical views regarding homeless people. It is assumed that homeless people are scary because of their looks, and also due to their appearance and cash status, many people would brand the homeless as thieves. Many people also feel ‘above’ homeless people, or even better than them based on wealth and social surroundings, this can lead to people feeling that they do not have to donate money to the homeless.
Another group of outcasts are asylum seekers, many people do not want asylum seekers in the country. There were alot of protests against a home being made just for asylum seekers and there has been a lot of violence abuse aimed at groups of asylum seekers. Many asylum seekers are seen to be ‘free-riding’ and scavenging from our country. There is a lot of public hatred regarding asylum seekers. The media shows asylum seekers entering the country and claim they have left their own country for weak reasons and have illegally come to England all receiving good treatment.
This leads to asylum seekers often becoming scapegoats. Many people blame asylum seekers for rises in taxes and general expenses.
Racial discrimination is another type of prejudice. Groups are often discriminated against in employment or legally. The majority of the racism is covert implicit – a little less ‘obvious’.
However there are many cases of overt explicit. Racism occurs in many forms e.g. employment, violence, verbal, social discrimination, property vandalism and media. There have been many famous examples of more overt racism, e.g. Stephen Lawrence, Damilola Taylor. Groups targeted are Muslims, Asians, and Gypsies. These groups are targeted because they are minority groups and racial abuse is a lot to do with fear of the unknown. There is little information about ethnic groups and racist attitudes are mostly formed in areas of poverty where racist groups are used as a scapegoat.
Sexism is another common type of racial discrimination. This has mainly been men in power discriminating against women in employment, politics and the voting system and issues regarding family, ownership and property. However women can also sexually discriminate in legal decisions regarding child custody. There are lot a lot of current issues regarding sexism, employment continues to be a difficult area, whilst in sport, many women are upset about the airtime being dedicated to men. Also there have been continuing problems in politics and church leadership, although a lot of the sexism is very implicit and done very covertly, making prosecution very difficult.
A02: Explain what Christians today might learn from Jesus’ examples about how to care for outcasts.
Christians today would feel obliged to help outcasts based on Jesus’ examples. Many Christians would try and follow in the example of Jesus’ principles.
One of Jesus’ principles was welcoming people whilst showing love to them, and a key theme in Luke’s Gospel is universalism. Deuteronomy 24: 15 -15 talks about equal rights and that everyone is the same. I think that this is a very important quote and I think it regards racial prejudice, and says that we should treat people equally. Christians would act upon this by being against racism, they would strongly disapprove of racist jokes, and they could take part in peaceful demonstrations against racism, and pray about problems caused by racism.
Christians would also take a similar stance on sexism. In politics, they could back a candidate who has anti – sexist views. They would also disapprove of sexist jokes, whilst making a clear effort to avoid making judgement.
Christians would also take examples from Jesus’ persistence to care for people. With issues regarding the homeless, The Big Issue is very famous throughout the north for the money that goes to the homeless from the magazine sale. Although the Big Issue was not started by a Christian, it shows compassion towards the homeless, something that Jesus would have shown.
One Christian lady had the idea of ‘Gods Garage’ where the homeless live in garages and there has been evidence that this idea has been carried on by Christians and non-Christians throughout the country. The Salvation Army are renowned for their Christian beliefs and they offer a wide range of services including free meals towards the homeless.
Jesus was famous for his care regardless of what others thought and there have been many examples of this in the Gospel of Luke. Christians would act on this by still show great love and care towards asylum seekers by offering them temporary accommodation.
A03: Today’s world is survival of the fittest in sport, love, business and life. The weak go to the wall, the strong flourish. Do you agree? Refer to Christianity in your answer.
Personally I do not accept that the weak go to the wall, however I accept that today’s society is becoming very capitalist. Examples of this are relevant to the world today. Countries such as America and the United Kingdom already have a lot of money, however they force poorer countries into even more debt, by charging so much interest that the countries have no chance of paying it back. The aid that is given is out of pity, and there is such a huge amount of competition, L.E.D.C’s cannot even come close in the market.
In love, there has been a huge change in the times, there have been a lot more marriages arranged for money, or potential gain for one partner. This has started to defeat any ideas of love between two people. Sport is becoming increasingly worrying, athletes have felt the need to take performance-enhancing drugs and cheat, just because they feel winning is so important.
However, there is still hope. To prove that not everything is done for personal gain – Christians have taken the message of Jesus on board and set up charities such as FairTrade. This aims to give farmers in L.E.D.C’s a greater ‘hope’ in life as all the money goes the people who produced the cocoa, instead of the big companies. Also charities, which aim to help the poor, people who put in tireless hours to help people less fortunate than them. This is done with the charity workers getting nothing but satisfaction. So I don’t think that everything revolves around personal gain.