He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” - Mark 16:15

Have you ever heard the story of the good Samaritan? It’s a parable that Jesus tells in the book of Luke. The central idea is that a man gets robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the side of the road, then a pastor walks by and pretends he doesn’t exist, then one of the really important high-profile church guys walks past and also pretends he doesn’t exist. Finally, a guy who is a bit of an outcast and sort of from a looked down upon social class comes along and helps the guy, gets him bandaged up, and takes him to a safe place. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I'm pretty sure Jesus was making a point about the dangers of being "religious" without showing the love of God. However, there’s something else about this story that interests me, and it’s that I don’t think it would happen today. No, not because we’re less likely to help someone in need, there are “good” people and “bad” people anywhere you go. The reason I think this story wouldn’t happen today is because I’m not so sure that two people who are so different would interact with each other or cross paths at all. 

In the information age, as our world has gotten bigger and we have gained access to more people, more news, and more opportunities for connection, it seems to me that we have somehow only made our world smaller, cut our circles down to a small number of people who agree with us and think like us, only hear the news we want to hear, and avoid any risk of connecting with someone different than us. Recent years have seen an observable uptick in echo chambers (defined as “an environment in which somebody encounters only opinions and beliefs similar to their own, and does not have to consider alternatives.”) with a Pew (Not that kind of pew) research study finding that over 70% of Americans couldn’t even agree on basic facts. If we see something we don’t like, it’s as easy as a quick unfollow or unfriend, and now the algorithms are even doing it for us. We are living in an era where we can live in our virtual tribes and far too easily avoid interacting with anyone who thinks differently than us. 

We are in an epidemic of hearing only voices that sound like our own, and my fear is that this is the exact opposite of how we were intended to do life. We see it in scripture, as Jesus tells us to go out into all the world, we see how Jesus interacted with all manner of people, and we see verses like 1st Corinthians 12:12 which says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” God didn’t design this life to be lived only with people who are JUST like us, any more than the body was designed to be made up of nothing but feet. (Gross.) We need to make a concentrated effort to meet, talk to, and show love to, people who are different than us. In his book, A Million Little Miracles, Mark Batterson says “In the beginning God created us in His image. We’ve been creating God in our image ever since. That is our ancient error… We think of God in purely human terms, the result is a god, lowercase g, that looks like us, thinks like us, and yes, even votes like us. But when we filter our theology through our history, personality, or politics, it’s called idolatry.” 

The Kingdom of Heaven is a “come all you weary” Kingdom. It isn’t come all you rich or come all you poor, it isn’t come all you Republican or come all you Democrat, it isn’t come all Team Cap or Team Iron Man (Team Cap all the way, though), it isn’t come all you American or come all you European. Come. All. You. Weary. We were called to go out into the world and talk about what’s happening in the church, and instead we’ve become people who are content to stay in the church and talk about what’s happening in the world. Jesus interacted with all types of people with all types of opinions, and He showed the love of God everywhere He went. (Besides MAYBE with the religious “holier than thou” types, He wasn’t always too kind to those…) Maybe it’s time we lay down the echo chamber, and take up the cross. Maybe we leave our bubbles and trade them for open doors. Because the world doesn’t need more opinions, (I heard those are like SOMETHING else that everyone has…) but it sure could use the kindness and love of God. Maybe we need to trade the virtual tribalism that says “Go away all who are different”, for the authentic love of Christ that says “Come all you weary.” I think that’s what He’s all about.

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