The new leader of the Conservative party has been chosen, we have a new Prime Minister. They have met with Queen Elizabeth and now with King Charles. The Royal Family is, as is the country, in mourning. Who will they sit with?
Do you know any notorious sinners? Nudge Nudge 😉
In Luke 15 :1-2 [ yes only 2 verses this week] we read that an odd collection of tax collectors and ‘other notorious sinners’ often came to listen to Jesus. Please do not look around the congregation on Sunday morning and try to identify people like this. Did others know of their supposed wrongdoings? Note also that all these folk were Jews, perhaps not your Torah perfect Jews but still Jews.
Note also that these were all men. At the Temple in Jerusalem there was a separate area for women and gentiles.
Being exclusive?
At this point we could start discussing the wrongs of exclusivism, of separating one group of people from another. We can identify a group, such as those who identify from the LGBTQ+ community, those who are heterosexual, those who have a very different political standpoint to ours – but to exclude them? Here we have a group of people who voluntarily come to listen to Jesus. And he is with them.
Wouldn’t that be cool if groups of people previously ostracised by the church were welcomed?
As we possibly sit in Church this weekend, or sit on the couch and watch a YouTube worship service, or sit somewhere and people watch, noticing that God is in all, we might feel that there is a dividing line. It is one that we have crossed because we are where we are: physically or spiritually. I spoke with one lady recently who told me how they speak to a higher being. They were always talking to them, possibly not always verbally. They didn’t intentionally us ‘God’. Nevertheless, I think we have the same spiritual understanding just different names for God. Some people know of God as him, her, or gender full, whilst others genderless. Are we all taking of the same?
You could feel bonds being made.
Do we sit with the archbishops?
But Jesus didn’t stick with the archbishops, the cardinals, the high priests but sat with everyone. When in Luke 15:2 it reads ‘eating with them’. that’s not a cheese burger to go – even if the option to ‘go large’ was available. It’s a time of really getting to know your fellow diners, accepting them and friendship. The Pharisees may have been righteous – or they strived to follow the law – but it never stopped them from also breaking the law on occasions, as ‘the notorious sinners’ did.
Do not like that word ‘sin’
The word Sin has so much baggage from the past. How might we rephrase it?
Sin is that breaking down of society, those bonds between us and all whom we live with.
Who will we sit with?
So as the political tidal wave fails to ebb, our days of national mourning continue, let’s pause to think who we might sit with. Have we sat with those who would want to sit with us – that’s reciprocation, which Jesus spoke of in the previous Chapter.
Do we engage only with those who reside in our online echo chamber?
Why not intentionally sit with those society does not?
We also might find good company there. Jesus did.