Come one, come all

June 29, 2006

By Greg Ebie

The 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a story of a dinner party for six given to introduce a newly engaged couple to their parents. Both sets of parents have the same problem, but for different reasons. The bride to be is white and the future groom is black. How could their kids choose to marry someone “different” from the rest of the family?

Have you ever had a meal with people who didn’t want to agree with each other? Have you tried to be the peacemaker in a “food fight” of words? It can be hard to get people together even over a good meal.

“Later Jesus and his disciples were at home having supper with a collection of disreputable guests. Unlikely as it seems, more than a few of them had become followers.”

(Mark 2:15, The Message)

Jesus had no problem relating to people at all social levels. He could just as easily talk with an outcast as the well educated; Jesus would interact with the rich and the poor, the healthy and the sick; He welcomed sinners and saints alike.

Still even Jesus had a hard time breaking down the barriers that separated some people from others. Some people rejected Jesus and His teaching because He was willing to associate with the “wrong kind” of people.

“The religion scholars and Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company and lit into his disciples: ‘What kind of example is this, acting cozy with the riffraff?’ ”

(Mark 2:16)

How much has the church become like the Pharisees? Are we guilty of expecting people to “clean up their act” before they come to church? Jesus accepts us just the way we are, but we want people to be “like us” before they can be a part of our churches.

Whom have you been reluctant to reach out to because they are different than you are? Isn’t it time we started following Jesus’ example. Like Jesus, let’s set out a welcome mat and really mean it.

D. Greg Ebie is senior pastor of Praise Assembly of God in Garrettsville, Ohio, and an author of Daily Bread devotionals.