Mark Chapter 2

I read through this chapter several times before writing and when I did open the computer to start trying to put something down, I decided to start with the questions that were running through my mind.

Why is it we humans are such gatekeepers?  Why is it we don’t want everyone to have?  Everyone to experience?  Everyone to know?  Why do we want to think ourselves so special that we can’t share?  Why do we look so judgmentally on “them” but turn a blind eye to ourselves and those we deem “like us”? 

Why?

Why do we gatekeep? Why do we think there are some who don’t deserve… ?  It could be our faith, our social class, our whatever group.  

In our religions, we so often gatekeep.  We pick and choose who we let in, who’s acceptable, who’s welcome, who can lead, who can serve, who can do this, who can do that, and the list goes on.  We like to say everyone is welcome but it’s not always true.  It should be but too often it’s not.  

Just like in our scripture when the Pharisees saw the tax collectors at the table with Jesus, they were appalled.  Why would he associate with the likes of them?

Well, why wouldn’t he?  How do we reach or help others if we don’t ever talk to them?  Sharing a meal, getting to know them, letting them get to know him and learn from him, taking time to just be with them that’s how he gathered his flock. 

As I read here in chapter 2, I kept thinking about how we get split so often into us and them.  In that last paragraph I said “them” four times!  They are us and we are them! We are all the same, children of God, of the Universe, of Humanity.  

At the end of chapter 2, the pharisees ask why the disciples are doing “work’ or gathering on the Sabbath and Jesus replies with, “The sabbath was created for people, not people for the sabbath.”  Meaning, that people are more important than the sabbath, than the “rules”.  People should come first, caring for them, sharing with them, loving them, That is what is important.  That’s what should come first.

Gatekeeping keeps us from that, putting rules before humanity keeps us from that. 

Jesus came for the people.  He came to live among us, to teach us to love, to share, to care.  Seems we still have a lot of learning to do all these years later.

May we learn from Jesus’ example.  May we love and care and share and serve each other, all others as he did.  May we open wide the gates of the Kin’dom and welcome each other in.

Until next time…♥️