When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" – Mark 2:16

Today's Scripture Reading (December 15, 2023): Mark 2

Pastor Rob Bell tells a story about getting invited to an affair where there would be many important people. Bell says that he showed up, but he was afraid that he didn't really belong; at least, he didn't belong here. Maybe the story made an impact on me because I have been there. Bell says he looked around the room and marveled at the attendees, remarking to his wife that he had seen him on T.V. and heard him talk at a conference he had attended. And all the while, those little voices were screaming at him: you don't belong here. Leave before people find out who you really are.

His wife has the gift of encouragement, so as they were standing together at the party, soaking everything up, she turns to him and asks, "Do you realize what you are wearing?" Bell was wearing his usual black shirt and black pants. His wife picks up on her observation, "You are dressed identically as wait staff are dressed." Bell says that at that point, the voices inside him telling him he was in the wrong place just increased the volume.

But then, another side of his personality revealed itself. What an opportunity. He could become a spy at the party and use his disguise to go and stand close to a group and listen in on what was being said. As a wait staff member, no one would think anything of his presence. Bell realized that he needed to make the most of the opportunity. So, Bell, dressed like the wait staff, wandered over to where one of the prominent VIPs was holding court and stood there pretending to do something else, but really, he was listening to the conversation happening in the next group over. And then, all of a sudden, the conversation stopped, and Rob says he turned around and realized that the whole group had turned and was now looking at him. Busted. Then, the group leader handed him an empty glass and said, "Thanks, man," and the conversation returned. For his part, Rob picked up the empty glasses and headed for the kitchen; after all, it was the task for which he was dressed.

It is the fear that haunts all of us. At some point, we all feel like pretenders. And we hope that nobody notices that we don't belong. It is into that precise mess that God's grace steps in. Dallas Willard says it this way;

"The poor in spirit are called blessed by Jesus not because they are in a meritorious condition, but because precisely, in spite of and in the midst of their ever so deplorable condition, the rule of the heavens has moved redemptively upon and through them by the grace of Christ" (Dallas Willard – The Divine Conspiracy).

Or, as Rob Bell argues;

Grace meets you in the moment when you are most terrified that you are going to be found out. And what grace does is free you to own all of the things that you aren't. It meets you at the most painful moment of your story and wraps its arms around you and tells you it's okay. (Rob Bell)

I get to understand all of the things that I am not. The world wants me to play a comparison game; it wants to meet at the back of the sanctuary and explain to me how I have fallen short, but Grace intervenes and says that it is alright. This is Jesus, and this is grace. And yes, it costs us something, but it also frees us.

When that little voice starts screaming that we are someplace that we don't belong, it is then that we are ripe for grace. But the truth might be that when we need it the most, we look down on those who have been graced by God, proclaiming that they don't belong. The tax collectors and sinners had already been graced, but the Pharisees and religious elite, who looked down on these people, were the ones who needed God's grace but were too full of themselves to realize it.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: John 5