In light of today's current events, I've been noticing the general fearful and excluding mindset many Christians cling tightly onto today. This has caused me to reflect a lot on one of my favorite sections in the Bible: Mark 2: 13-17.
These verses how Jesus had been preaching to a large crowd in Capernaum, and as He walked along, He ran into Levi, an infamous tax collector from the area. Telling Levi to follow Him, Jesus heads back to his house and eats dinner with him and the fellow "sinners and tax collectors" from town (Mark 2:15). When the Pharisees witnessed Him building relations with some of the most frowned upon people in their society, they were shocked and began to question Jesus on why He would do such a thing, and upon hearing their complaints:
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)
To me, this verse is extremely powerful and relevant to our lives today. As Christians, including myself, we tend to reach out and help those in our own churches or inner circles before reaching out to others in need. We tend to look at other Christians as higher or better than non-Christians and those who have committed "worse" sins than us. Knowing that we need to help all and that all are children of God with us, we have a hard time putting this belief into practice, and instead reflect what the Pharisees were doing above.
Yet, Jesus was able to see the humanity and redeemable qualities in every human, and warmly received them to eat with Him and His disciples. When the church turned them away, Jesus welcomed them. While it is important to foster relationships and grow in faith together as a Christian community, it is just as important to focus on the "sick" and the "sinners," not just those who we view as "healthy" and "righteous" (I used quotes around these words due to the fact that in reality, we are all sick and sinners, and no one is perfectly righteous on this earth, but that is a topic that must be discussed later).
You could focus this verse onto current political issues, or make it more general to fit your everyday interactions with others, either way, the same message rings clear: it is impossible to spread Christ's love throughout the world when we are too focused on excluding those who do not seem righteous enough to us. Through recognizing our own fallenness and "sickness," we should be able to put aside our differences and our own self-righteousness and reach out to others.
Christians were not placed on this earth to mingle with each other and worship alone, but instead are made to share the gospel with all peoples, since all are just as worthy of God's message as we are. It is hard to change your mindset from fearing other people and wanting to exclude those who you qualify as "sinners," but Jesus calls us to do just that. This is why Mark 2 is such an eye-opening chapter to me, and why I believe more Christians should take it seriously and let it influence their lives.
