Gather the Outcasts
“He gathers the outcasts…” –Psalm 147: 2
You’d think we were in Pamplona, Spain, at the annual running of the bulls, but no. This, folks, is the back-to-school ice cream social. At an appointed time, and not a moment too soon, an elementary staff member plasters the glass doors with the rosters of this year’s classes. If your child happens to be trampled underfoot in the hordes of squealing classmates, not to worry! The lists cover the walls of social media in light seconds, to be analyzed by parents like a play-by-play at Sporting Park. And the obsessing begins.
I find it’s easy, as an adult, to forget how important social capital is to children, until I remember how hungry I was to be liked—popular—in school. Fitting in feels good. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, belonging ranks just after survival and safety as our third fundamental need. Not only does this extend to adults but, if you’ll remember back to those forever-ago formative years, the need to be liked and accepted is doubly intense in a child’s world.
For as much as we want to be liked, children want it all the more.
I think it’s important, then, before school starts back this month, to have a heart-to-heart with our kids about the chemistry and cliques within the classroom. To remind them that fitting in isn’t everything, that social capital rises and falls faster than the Mamba, that integrity trumps popularity. Every time.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but if Jesus were a boy combing over those class rosters, I’m pretty sure he’d be making plans to save a seat for the shunned, team up with the teased and make “in’s” with the outcasts. That’s how Jesus rolls. He empties himself to fill others to the full. Jesus loves a good underdog.
As we approach those glass doors, head on and full speed ahead for yet another school year, let’s remind our children to be intentional about friendships. To scan the playground for the lone girl kicking up dirt, pick the boy with two left feet for the gym team and fraternize with the friendless. Why? Because Jesus said, “You did it unto me.”
Christianity, welcome to the classroom.
Wendy Connelly, mother of two, is co-founder of the “Live and Let Think” dialogues on Christianity and a graduate student at St. Paul School of Theology in Leawood.