“Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)”

I’d forgotten how clique-ish college can be.  As I was in many classrooms last week and would start each session with getting a sense of who was in the room and where they were from, I was reminded of my own college cliques and how certain groups, whether from the same majors, the same hometowns, the same Greek life organizations, or the same country would travel in packs.  As I finished a week plus of speaking/teaching, the last session was a lunch of about 25 business school students.  On the right hand side of the long boardroom table, there were six students sitting in a line, all from China.  On the other side of the table were three students, all three from South Korea.  And then there were girls sitting with girls and boys sitting with boys.  It’s as if someone told them to segregate themselves.  They were just staying among themselves.  This same thing happens in the workplace as we watch cliques get created all around us.  We then wonder why some people don’t get along with others, or seem to have weak relationships.  If we stay among ourselves, we don’t really grow and we miss the opportunities to learn something new and different from others.  We should be on the watch for developing cliques and when we see them, do all we can to break them up and send people out and into other groups of people.

Jesus never stayed among those who would have been predictable.  He could have “cliqued” with any of the religious leader groups.  But, instead He didn’t become one of any group, He instead pulled many who were different from Him in and then kept them out and among those who were different. That’s why God’s message is so powerful.  His love and Word doesn’t stop at any boundary or any group of people.  He, like He modeled for us, transcends all personalities, socioeconomic,  demographics, backgrounds, successes and failures.  As we walk through this day, are we ensuring that we are also doing the same and not just staying and keeping His message just among just ourselves?

Reference: Mark 2:15 (New Living Translation)