Mark 2:13-22
Being a parent gives you a different perspective in life. I now know how different it is from being a grandparent. Being a grandpa is all love and considerably less responsibility. Being a parent involves a lot of love and a lot of responsibility. One of the tasks we have as parents is to make sure the kids grow up right, part of that is having good examples and safe surroundings. We watch what crowd our kids hang with. I can just see Mary cringing at the crowd Jesus has been hanging out with. Tax collectors, perhaps prostitutes, lepers and sinners all. If ever there was an example of a suffering Jewish mother, Mary had to be it. Can you picture her complaining about who he's been hanging out with? Oy vey!
As life has it though, our kids quite often teach us a thing or two when they grow up. Mary always knew Jesus was special but it remains unknown whether she realized how special. Even if she knew that she was truly the Messiah, what kind of Messiah had she been expecting as a devout Jewish woman? Imagine though how blessed she was experiencing his ministry. Undiluted and not bastardized by any religious pretension's or rules, she was able to experience the raw message and lessons of love. Imagine her joy when word gets home to her of this man (her very own son) who is performing miracles, interpreting the law and showing love and mercy wherever he went. Perhaps that is the true origin of the words ver klempt.
I know we are all so very concerned that our own kids (the kids we have been entrusted with by God) are hanging out with the right crowd, good kids with good families. We would prefer they not hang out on the corner, associate with druggies or drinkers. These are normal concerns. I am sure Mary in her time had relatively the same concerns. Jesus however saw the goodness in everyone and was able to look past labels and effectuate change in everyone he associated with. The wrong crowd became the right crowd through Jesus. Turning the tables and shaking up the accepted norms was clearly a part of Jesus' ministry and part of God's love and design.
We are too quick to judge. Even if there is an inkling of truth in our judgements we paint with too broad a brush, often at the expense of some one's character or reputation. It seems we should be less concerned with the wrong crowd and more concerned with our own actions. As always, those actions are loving our neighbor, seeing the godliness in everyone including ourselves. By our love we can effect the same change Jesus did. By our love.
Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
As life has it though, our kids quite often teach us a thing or two when they grow up. Mary always knew Jesus was special but it remains unknown whether she realized how special. Even if she knew that she was truly the Messiah, what kind of Messiah had she been expecting as a devout Jewish woman? Imagine though how blessed she was experiencing his ministry. Undiluted and not bastardized by any religious pretension's or rules, she was able to experience the raw message and lessons of love. Imagine her joy when word gets home to her of this man (her very own son) who is performing miracles, interpreting the law and showing love and mercy wherever he went. Perhaps that is the true origin of the words ver klempt.
I know we are all so very concerned that our own kids (the kids we have been entrusted with by God) are hanging out with the right crowd, good kids with good families. We would prefer they not hang out on the corner, associate with druggies or drinkers. These are normal concerns. I am sure Mary in her time had relatively the same concerns. Jesus however saw the goodness in everyone and was able to look past labels and effectuate change in everyone he associated with. The wrong crowd became the right crowd through Jesus. Turning the tables and shaking up the accepted norms was clearly a part of Jesus' ministry and part of God's love and design.
We are too quick to judge. Even if there is an inkling of truth in our judgements we paint with too broad a brush, often at the expense of some one's character or reputation. It seems we should be less concerned with the wrong crowd and more concerned with our own actions. As always, those actions are loving our neighbor, seeing the godliness in everyone including ourselves. By our love we can effect the same change Jesus did. By our love.
Jesus went out again beside the lake; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax-collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
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?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’
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