1. Just before Jesus ascends to heaven in Matthew, he exhorts the disciples to go into the world to baptize and teach (we know it now as the Great Commission). Final words, if you will, that reveal his great desire to extend his love to all the world.
2. From an early age, we have a tendency to include and exclude. Sometimes it's because of numbers -- you can only invite 8 people to you birthday party; sometimes it is by preference -- I don't really want so-and-so to hang out with us Saturday night; sometimes it is by happenstance -- if thought you were out of town, so I didn't invite you to join us. Most of us can remember being left out; most of us, if we're honest, can remember intentionally leaving someone out.
3. We tend to shrink the circle of those we choose to include; Jesus always seemed to be expanding the circle of who we ought to include.
4. Can you think of examples when you have been excluded? Or included? Or have excluded others intentionally? Or included others intentionally?
5. When I was in college, I served as the President of the Interfraternity Council. One of my jobs was to match bids extended with those seeking a bid. Fraternities would turn in their lists and potential members would turn in their lists. They would be matched according to preferences. What a horrible feeling to realize that there were a handful of young men who listed every fraternity as a choice they would accept only to discover that no fraternity had chosen to accept them.
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