You Belong Here (Mark 2:13-22)
Where do you feel like you really fit in? Where do you belong?
Maybe it's with your family, or at your job, or with people who share a similar background.
Maybe it's at church. Or maybe church is a place you definitely don't feel like you belong.
There may be some people for whom belonging comes naturally in every instance, but most of us have some discomfort about whether we're really welcomed at least some of the time.
This week at Grace, we're going to look at Mark 2:13-22, where Jesus invites Levi to follow him. This surprises many around him because Levi was a tax collector, someone who seemed not to belong around religious people.
Jesus responds with this beautiful challenge: "It is not the healthy but the sick who need a doctor."
We belong with Jesus.
Hope to see you Sunday at Grace!
In Christ,
Pastor Bob
13 He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
18 Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
- Mark 2:13-22