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From Exclusion to Inclusion
Our faith experience would be so different if all we had to think about is how we act. If only following Jesus was simple behavior modification!   

Jesus, however, wants us to go deeper into our hearts.  And the heart of the matter today is how much room we have for people who are not quite like us.  You probably know the verb “othering,” treating someone as alien, oddly different.  

In Mark 2:15-22 there is the account of Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners. People who were “othered” by religious folks.     

 ^“Jesus sat down to eat at Levi’s house. Many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples. Indeed, many of them had become his followers. ¹⁶ When some of the legal experts from among the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why is he eating with sinners and tax collectors?”

¹⁷ When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to call righteous people, but sinners.”

¹⁸ John’s disciples and the Pharisees had a habit of fasting. Some people asked Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but yours don’t?”

¹⁹ Jesus said, “The wedding guests can’t fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they can’t fast. ²⁰ But the days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

²¹ “No one sews a piece of new, unshrunk cloth on old clothes; otherwise, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and makes a worse tear. ²² No one pours new wine into old leather wineskins; otherwise, the wine would burst the wineskins and the wine would be lost and the wineskins destroyed. But new wine is for new wineskins.” (Mark 2:15-22, CEB)

Think of those two groups for a minute. First, he ate with tax collectors, they were like lepers, they were outsiders. Zacchaeus' affiliation with Rome as a tax man put him in an undesired class.  Jesus sees that class system, the way outsiders are subject to being categorized, and he enters into relationship with him. So, Jesus includes people who are hostage to systems that have labeled them as outsiders. What labels do we use today to exclude people? Political, religious or social labels? How do those systems put some folks “outside”? 

Second, it says Jesus ate with sinners who were considered morally unclean. He intentionally made space for those who were forbidden because of their moral failures. These are the people who are captive to an unhealthy or unholy practice.  Think of the prostitute or the man born blind who was considered to be blind because of his parents' sin.  What sins do we think of today that disqualify a person?  Maybe a past incarceration or some public offense? 

You and I are tempted to “Other” people unlike us. It’s easy. It’s convenient. However, it’s just not Jesus. He says, “Come to me all who labor under a heavy load and I will give you rest.”

Henry Nouwen identifies inclusion as a heart attitude that often tends to come a bit later in the spiritual journey.  Maybe it takes us all a little time to see how we are on the level with all who labor under a heavy load.   

As the old saying goes; There is level, perfectly level, ground at the foot of the cross.