I like pictures of gates and bridges, and often seem to take them when I'm out and about. To me they represent connection and the possibility of something special on the other side - but, I suppose, alongside this there is the hint of a selection process too: perhaps not everyone can cross the bridge, maybe not everyone will be admitted through the gate.
There are many ways of selection. Do you have the right ticket? Enough for the fare? The proper qualifications? Have you made the right friends, greased, perhaps, the right palms? In all sorts of areas of life, we have to sit tests, and all of us at some time have the experience of being stuck on the wrong side of the bridge, or shut out by the gate.
The Church can be as quick to exclude, and to create elites and hierarchies as any other human group, sadly; the spirit of the Pharisees with whom Jesus contended can be found among those who claim themselves as his followers. That's not surprising - it happens everywhere, it's human nature - but it is something to to be very wary of. For us, gates and bridges should be signs and places of welcome, invitation and safe passage.
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