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Reading - For There Were Many (Mark 2:13-17)
A pastor once told me, with a look of consternation on his face, that a member of his congregation had approached him to say, "You know pastor, we must be careful who we attract because we don't want just anybody in the church."
He replied, "Well we only want the kind of people Jesus would be happy to mix with." Guess what his next sermon was on?
The following correction was printed in the Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal:
"Because of a transcription error a November 28th
letter to the editor from Joseph Cutri said that Jesus was an Orthodox
Jew. It should have said that Jesus was an unorthodox Jew."
The person who approached the pastor was, obviously, an "orthodox" Christian. The pastor, thankfully, followed Jesus' example and was very unorthodox in his "go into the hedgerows and the byways" approach to evangelism.
In this passage we find very unorthodox behaviour indeed. Jesus sat and had dinner with "sinners". He shared the table of questionable characters and the Pharisees couldn't understand why. Why wasn't he "one of them"? If he was so great a teacher why didn't he sit in their exalted councils deliberating over the finer points of the law instead of mixing with these undeserving serial law-breakers? Why?
Because the Pharisees obviously felt they were doing OK without him. Because, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (v.17). He sat with sinners because these he had come to call. He sat with sinners because they needed him.
We are told that, "there were many who followed him". Now who, do you imagine, you would want to follow? Someone who couldn't stand the sight of you, or someone who was eager to spend time with you? It seems that people are divided into two groups. There are those, like the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14, who think of themselves in this way:
God thank you that I am not like other men -
robbers, evildoers, adulterers - but I am one of the good guys and I
am sure you must appreciate that there are still some of us left.
Then there are those like the tax collector just mentioned who think of themselves in this way:
"God, have mercy on me a sinner."
The first kind look down on the second kind but the second kind don't look up to the first kind. The first kind insist that the second kind should be more like them. The second kind may be down and desperate but not so desperate as to think the first kind anything to aspire to. Then along comes Jesus.
The Pharisee immediately imagines that Jesus is simply bound to think like him. Will like the people he likes, have the agenda he has and, no doubt, has come to smile on him for his faithfulness.
The sinner immediately sees that he is not fit to be seen with Jesus and Jesus sits down and eats with him. How embarrassing for the Pharisee! How wonderful for the sinner!
As you go into this week which kind are you?