-Cesar

Not explicitly when He was on the cross. However, earlier, Jesus did have a few words to say about persecution:

Matthew Chapter 5:

“10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, F8 for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

We are all stripped.

Count it all joy….whenever you face trials…..

God issues many invitations in life. The invitation to lay down one's life is going to come in a hundred different forms. Sometimes we realize the invitation is there. Sometimes it creates an internal turmoil. Other times we simply respond yes and do not realize we did it.

There is a grace and provision that comes with the invitations. I have done many things in life that look like sacrifice to others-that occur to me simply as blessings.

Marginalization and persecution are pretty self-centered concepts. Do you think Jesus, on the cross, was thinking–”I have chosen marginalization and persecution??”

He set aside all to be what—marginalized or unified??

So I think the journey demands an openness to seeing, receiving and lovingly saying “yes” to the invitations of God–and having a gratitude for both the invitations and the grace to respond.

I wonder if your question is not taking on the expectations of some other people whom in the course of saying yes to the invitations of Jesus–have taken their journeys and turned them into a legalism or a standard for you and others to meet. Don't strive to achieve the journey of another. Take their journey as encouragement and guidance; but your response must be to the invitations of God, confident in His grace, and compelled by his love.

You wrote: “several examples of faithful followers of Christ”

Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were Jewish. They didn't explicitly follow Christ. However, even though they didn't explicitly follow Jesus, yet they practiced the Way of Jesus by fighting for social justice.

I think you might be able to find the answer here. Jesus said:

“Matthew 19:23-30
23 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. 24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 25 When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? 26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”

One doesn't have to be poor or marginalized to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said that it was very difficult for the rich to understand. But then He said that with God, all things are possible.

I happen to be a member of a marginalized minority (Gay/Lesbian people). However, I know many, many people who are neither poor, female, or members of marginalized minorities who understand and practice Jesus' Word. Just let yourself go and follow Jesus' Word and you will understand.

In fact, as a follower of justice (Jesus' Word involves justice), you will likely find yourself marginalized. Many of the martyrs for justice were people just like you: relatively comfortable middle-class people who reached out to practice justice. Examples that I know of are: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, Jonathan Daniels, Rev. Jim Reeb: these are among the many people who gave up their lives to fight for civil rights for Black people in the 1960s. Then there is Frank Moscone, Mayor of San Francisco, who along with his colleague Harvey Milk, gave up his life to fight for Gay civil rights.

In Latin American, there was Bishop Oscar Romero, who came from a comfortable background who was martyred for standing up for the poor. This happens all over the world.

As a Christian: welcome to the world of the marginalized.

Comment 2: My wife battled a critical illness for 4 years before passing. She spent almost all of one year in a large urban hospital. She encountered hundreds (maybe thousands) of caregivers. I heard a med student tell her, “You have been my best teacher.” After her death her physician wrote to me, “This has been a once in a lifetime experience serving your wife and family.”

I saw another physician who was in charge of the ICU one day spend hours sitting and talking with others on the staff for hours getting them to adapt some of their protocols to best serve my wife. His wife was a neuro-surgeon in the same hospital who became critically ill and was in the hospital for a long time. The experience with his wife as patient transformed how he did medicine.

I share this to say–I don't think the issue is so much our 'position' in life that is the issue–but rather our perception of our position. There are six year olds who understand their place of 'impoverishment' before life and God. There are persons on their deathbed at age 80 angrily raising their fist at God. But in general, there is a reality to life, that sooner or later smacks us in the face. You will likely be seeing persons, one after another, day in and day out; old and young; poor and rich; being smacked in the face with some hard realities. You will face every day our struggle against sin and death.

This is not an abstraction. If you serve in the affluent west–you will have, at your fingertips, some of the best/costliest tools. You will be the interface between persons caught between Earth and Heaven not knowing what they can grab onto, whether there is hope, and this health system.

This is not a place for the tame at heart. It takes great maturity to have so much at one's disposal and to bring those resources under the Lordship of Christ. It takes one with a radical call. You will encounter many in the professions whose backs are bent over trying to function under the weight of the systems and the pains of those they serve.

There is plenty of 'poverty' in our face. The question is whether we see and embrace it and are able to presence Christ within it. The demands on your professional preparation are too great. There is no way to accept into one's person all the pressures, internal contradictions, pains, relationships, justice issues, systemic dysfunction, etc. you will encounter. It can only be engaged by one who has yielded; by one who is fully engaged in life's journey of laying down one's life so we might find it. Those who genuinely see their poverty lose their dread of seeing God. That is our ultimate fear that affluence and self masks.

I heard John Perkins address the issue of whether there is a Christian priority on expressing the Gospel to the rich or to the poor. He wisely responded, “Reach the rich on the way to the poor.”

Before the actual question, I just wanted to briefly preface it with a little background. I have never been persecuted for my faith and have never lived in a politically or economically repressive setting. For most of my life, I've lived your average middle class life. I had great parents growing up, worked hard in school, and am currently in med school.

The question I have is, with this background and Mr. Baldelomar's post in mind, how does someone like me embrace Christ's radical gospel message and how might that manifest itself in my life? I often feel like I share very little in common with the intended audience of Jesus' message (i.e. the persecuted, those occupied by a foreign, malevolent government, those viewed as lowly in the world's eyes, etc) and as such am at a marked disadvantage in terms of truly understanding and appreciating the radical nature of the gospel, just as Mr. Baldelomar illustrated in explaining the dynamics of his classrooms.

With this in mind, what might following Christ and embracing the gospel's radical message look like in the life of an average middle class guy like myself? I seek to follow Christ, but because of my background often have a hard time daily grasping this radical gospel and knowing how to live it out in my situation.

It seems that in many ways Christ's call is a call to the marginalized and the persecuted, and since I don't fit into that category, I struggle with how to make this radical gospel real and authentic in my life. Any thoughts?