DAILY BYTEPeople like us to live in boxes.
No, of course I am not talking about cardboard boxes but rather socially constructed ones. Fitting people neatly into different types of boxes makes it easier to define them. Knowing exactly what kind of box you fit into makes others feel safer around you.
What we often forget is that Jesus refused to be fitted into any of the boxes of his day. Jesus actively challenged his societies many rules of what it meant to be a good and devoted God-follower. In fact Jesus loved to turn popular ideas of how society should be right upside down!
Just one such example is how Jesus challenged our notions of leadership when he said things like ‘if you want to be great you must be a servant’, or the ‘first shall be last, and the last first’ (see Mark 10.44 & 10.31). Jesus often proposed upside down ways of thinking like this.
Jesus challenged the hierarchies that every society seems to have where a small number of people live comfortably on top whilst many others are left to languish on the bottom. He spoke against religious tendencies to exclude certain people from our relationships because they don’t fit into our narrow definitions of acceptability.
In many ways boxes limit and confine us. Jesus lived beyond the boxes of his day because he taught that God passionately loved all people, and not just those who place themselves at the top of hierarchies. Anyone who feels uncomfortable with their particular box, or who feels left out and on the outside of society should feel recognised and loved by Jesus.
In the same way we are called to live beyond boxes.
We are called to resist many of society’s rules and regulations of what it means to be ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’. Some examples of how we might live out of boxes is by not living as if money is the be all and end all of life; or by embracing and not rejecting societal outcasts such as the poor; or by loving and lifting others up rather than pushing them down in the race to get ahead.
Over the next four days we will be looking more closely at four different ways that we can actively seek to live ‘beyond the boxes’ and follow Jesus in his way of radical life and love.
But to do that effectively we first need to be prepared to hear Jesus’ words of challenge and to move ourselves out into totally new ways of life and being.
Are you ready to follow Jesus into a life beyond boxes?
PRAY AS YOU GO
Almighty and Holy God, as we sit back and think about life today, we admit how many boxes do exist in our society. Boxes of what it means to be successful (wealthy), of what it means to be meaningful (popular), of what it means to be important (powerful). Forgive us for those times we allow others to squeeze us into neat little boxes and forgive us for when we reduce others in the same way. We ask O’ God that throughout this week, you would give us the strength to follow you in living life beyond the boxes. Amen.
FOCUS READING
Mark 10:42-45 NIV
Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
