"Bound by all the trappings of power, the powerful must pass through the proverbial needle's eye if they are to realize the fullness of life and love.  But the outsider's perspective--a precondition of wisdom--is inherently available to the powerless, the excluded, the oppressed, the abused.  Jesus, the quintessential outsider, understood this, which is why he continually points his listeners toward the powerless (children, repentant sinners, women, Samaritans) as exemplars of wisdom." 

-- Fenton Johnson, Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey