As a child, youth, and even sometimes as an adult I have felt like an outsider.
How about you? Are you an insider? Or, an outsider?
You could identify as a Christian. You could enter a building and find yourself at a worship gathering. Depending upon the music, activities, dress of participants, you could be an insider or an outsider.
Circumstances can change causing you to change status from insider to outsider. Think about Jesus walking about telling stories with a teaching point. He was talking with insiders–Jewish people. However within the group “Jewish people” there were insiders (Pharisees, priests) and outsiders (everyone else). Forty years after Jesus was executed and then resurrected, the Jewish people in Palestine flipped from insider to outsider after the Romans grew weary of the constant rebellion and attacked.
Jesus told a story about insiders and outsiders. A man (assumed Jewish, but undefined) was beaten by robbers on a lonely road. Twice an insider passed by, avoided the man, and kept going. Then an outsider traveled the road. He saw the injured man and stopped. He cared for the man, took him to a place where he could heal, and paid for his recovery.
Jesus complimented the outsider.
When you are sitting comfortably with your other insiders, what do you feel toward outsiders? To what degree would you help them? That is the question Jesus asks us to ask ourselves. And he offers a suggestion as to how we should act. Hint: transcend that insider/outsider barrier.
Faith Venture 
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