Is there something you can do or a disease you can have that separates you from the faith community? Something where the people of God tell you that you can’t come in the doors until you make things right? Today in America, most churches say that they welcome everyone. Do they? Do you?
Moses promulgated a number of laws when the Hebrews started a new life as community in Sinai. Most likely they were designed to keep disease from spreading and wiping out the people. Can’t say they were all good science, but they all made sense at the time. But the notion of “unclean” foods, diseases, acts took on a life in future generations as being ritually unclean. You cannot worship God and be part of the faith community until you become ritually clean.
We seldom use those terms, but I’m sure that we have our own personal lists of unclean where we’ll think that those people should not be part of our community of faith–adultery, mental / emotional disorders, drunkenness, and so on.
As you ponder whether you set up barriers to entry into your faith community, consider Jesus (as Mark writes). He enters an unclean territory, meets an unclean person who is driven by unclean spirits (we’d call that mental/emotional disorders), living in an unclean place (cemetery), among unclean animals (pigs). Whew. But Jesus deals with the man and the situation. He restores him to the community. And people were amazed and frightened. They wanted him to leave before he upset any more things in the order of their lives.
We believe that Jesus is alive in our faith community (at least I hope that you do). If so, then where else can people come to find wholeness than to meet Jesus in your community. And how else unless it’s open and welcoming? And sometimes those of us who think we’re “clean” or those whom the world thinks is “clean” even though inside perhaps we’re not, need the faith community to help restore us to wholeness in God. You can’t be a healer if you don’t reach out.
Faith Venture 
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