Like the religious elite of Jesus’ time, we are destined for a life of being barrier makers and line drawers if we insist on holding on to a culturally diluted version of Jesus. However, when we rediscover the radical message of Jesus—a message that consistently, from beginning to end pronounced inclusion for the excluded, and love for the outcast—we rediscover a divine invitation to become the people who flip the tables, erase the lines, and remove barriers. We are invited to join Jesus in practicing undiluted inclusion of the “other.” Let’s stop being the religious elites who focus on when and how to keep people out, and instead endeavor to be the loving, inclusive followers of Jesus who unrelentingly invite the outsider to come in.
