Formed at the table,
for the good of the city.

Day 3 of our Empowered Sabbath Retreat: This morning, we studied and received what God wanted to say to us through Mark 2. Jesus is moved by the faith of four friends who ruthlessly cut a hole through someone’s roof, lowering their friend down in a mat, so that he might get healed. Jesus’ first word of healing to the parallyzed man is, “Child”! Before usefulness or uselessness, God meets us in our deepest need and deepest wounding: to whom and where do I belong? Jesus calls the man into his family, and then he sends the man home—healed first in his identity and then his whole person—named, forgiven, physically healed, then sent. Jesus repeats these same movements when he calls Matthew the tax collector to follow him…all the way to Matthew’s own house. Heal us and send us with your healing into our own homes, God! “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?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”” ‭‭Mark‬ ‭2‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬