So who gets to belong?

That's a big question. We could almost say the majority of our social discourse these days is about who gets to belong and at what level. The conversation begins when we are kids on the playground and in the classroom and sadly continues throughout our entire life.

At our best, recognize differences and learn to live and work together. At our worst, we dehumanize and begin to work off of a scale of social worth.

And this has happened for thousands of years.

Jesus encountered it in His ministry and this situation puts a few things forward that we need to consider.

Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector's booth. "Follow me and be my disciple," Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.

15 Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus' followers.) 16 But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, "Why does he eat with such scum?"

17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners." Mark 2:13-17

Jesus encounters people at all of their level of belonging. And his message isn't as simple or cut and dry as we would like it. But His world wasn't simple and our world isn't simple. Let's learn from the one who can actually instruct us with the truth.