Is this one of those bits that threatens or scares us? If we've had a genuine personal experience of being called right out of some job & into a more 'Jesus-oriented' one, we know the cost. Those of us who haven't can probably rationalise - with flying colours - why it needn't happen to us! As a tourism ad for Australia's Northern Territory puts it, "You'll never never know if you never never go!"

MT's next test is having Jesus to dinner. Whether we're called within the Body as dramatically as MT or not, the 'rules' of hospitality need to be wide enough to include others we think of as 'out there somewhere', in the margins. Not our kind. Those we'd never think of inviting as guests. Genuine hospitality is a very neglected Gift of the Spirit. I once had as colleague a priest I respect immensely. At that stage of their ministry, he & his wife would not invite to a meal anyone who could invite them back. Only those whom no-one else was likely to invite. (I admit I found that a bit hard to cope with!)

Does the church set up funded, bureaucratic, professional organisations to deal with those out in the margins of society at least partly because most of us feel uncomfortable in the margins. Even afraid of them? Because we haven't yet learned to become as inclusive as Jesus? Or because our 'friends' would look at us differently if we played host to outsiders? Maybe stop inviting us! Who puts people outside? What puts them out? Maybe some have always been out, 'destined' there by the way society works? Whose job is it to bring all these 'little ones' - to use Jesus' term - in? Is Jesus any closer to winning this one than he was back then? Winning isn't really the name of the Jesus game, is it? Isn't it more a matter of who really wins, as distinct from who thinks they have, seems to have won?

Does much of our effort as a Christian community reach out to those who are 'sick' as Jesus puts it? Close to nil? Aren't most of our efforts directed inwards towards ourselves, the 'righteous', 'religious', 'inside' folk? If this is a habit we've got into, does it not put us among those Jesus says he hasn't called? And if Jesus hasn't called us, where the heck does that leave us? Calling ourselves?

Maybe we have some breathing space. The next two scenarios show Jesus reaching out to both an insider, i.e. Jairus & his daughter..let's honour her by giving her a name, say, Sarah; & an outsider: let's honour her, too, and call her Miriam... a woman who's been exluded from society for years because of her bleeding. By the way, MT, in contrast with MK & LK, has Sarah already dead before Jairus can approach Jesus. To show Jairus as having even greater faith in Jesus? Interesting thought? Why is it so much easier to pray for people like Miriam than to actually do something for them? Which raises the question of whether we can expect prayer to be effective if we aren't prepared to become part of the answer! How many people or concerns die - in some sense - before we bring ourselves to approach them, or Jesus, on their behalf? How does faith stand up when the Miriams of this world don't get physically well again?

Jesus raises MT up from ordinariness; Sarah from death; Jairus from despair; Miriam from shame & exclusion. Is there something on this menu for us?

Afterthought: Maybe 'the crowd' has to be 'put outside' more often than we think before anything worthwhile can happen?