Dear Ones,
We humans love our margins. They are so neat and tidy. Keeping things in their place.
In writing, they are designed to enhance readability, improve aesthetics, and provide functional space for holding the document, making notes, and protecting the text. They create essential “white space” around the main content, preventing a cluttered appearance and guiding the reader’s eye.
In social structures, margins are designed to primarily define the boundaries of a dominant “center”, serving as sites of social, economic, and political exclusion. They function to sort individuals into “insider” and “outsider” categories, often mapping power and exclusion onto spatial or social imagery.
As of October 2025, several tracking sites have measured Project 2025 – the White Christian Nationalist blueprint for the United States – as almost half (48%) complete. The “white space” becomes the dominant center, pushing others out into the margins. Critics point out that it threatens democratic institutions and checks and balances; politicizes the civil service and law enforcement; imposes extreme social policies that limit individual rights; and risks undermining essential government programs and protections.
Last week we looked at Luke 20:27-38, where Jesus addresses the Sadducees’ thinly veiled question of maintaining the status quo of marginalizing women through a question of multiple marriages in “this age” and resurrection. This week we will look at marginalization through the lens of Mark 5:1-10, with Mark’s depiction of the Gerasene Demoniac living amongst the tombs.
We welcome guest preacher, Garrett House, PSR seminarian and Member in Discernment (MID) with the Congregational Church of the Peninsula, as he offers his reflection on the story in today’s context. You can read a bit more about him below. I look forward to seeing you at 10 am on 1130 Balclutha, Zoom or Livestream.
Yours from the edge,
Rev. Michael