On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God … Nehemiah 13:1

 Today's Scripture Reading (October 11, 2020): Nehemiah 13

Do you know what it is like to be an outsider? Author Jean Webster argues that "Half of the time I don't know what they're talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language." I am not sure if Webster was talking about her own experience or whether she placed herself in one of her characters' shoes. But I understand the words. Often, her words accurately describe exactly how I feel. I often feel like an outsider that doesn't belong. I can sit in a room full of people and feel like I don't understand the language or the jokes, and the things that are being said relate to a history of which I am ignorant.

I don't think that I am alone. In fact, I think what I feel might be more common than we might believe. Maybe we are all still living in Junior High, trying to live up to the image projected by the cool kids without realizing that no one is sure who the cool kids are or what the rules might be that we are all desperately trying to follow.

I have to admit that it is comments, like this one that Nehemiah makes about the Ammonites and Moabites, that I struggle within the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible. I am bothered by the declaration that no (fill in the blank) should ever be admitted to the assembly of God. These people are and always will be excluded. Christian scholars tend to add a phrase to the prohibition that says, "unless they convert to Judaism." But that "exception to the rule" is not found in the text. Here the blanket statement is that no Ammonite or Moabite should be admitted into the Assembly of God, ever. It is a law that is found in the beginning, back in the nation's infancy, written during the days of Moses.

Except that there are exceptions. Ruth was a Moabite, and also the great-grandmother David. Ruth was an outsider, and yet became an essential character in the history of the nation. 

And that might be the real story, especially within the Christian tradition. We are all "the excluded." Luke, in Acts, tells the story of an Ethiopian eunuch, another person who, according to the Book of Moses, is to be forever excluded from the Assembly of God. Deuteronomy says, "No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 23:1). What is excluded in the Book of Moses, Luke makes clear, is included in Christ.

This is good news for me, and maybe for you as well, because I am an outsider who never seemed quite able to find his place at the cool kid's table. But even though the world might want to exclude me, in Christ, I am included. And I always will be.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Malachi 1