Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”
Luke 15:1-2
It wasn’t that Jesus was ghosting the Pharisees and the scribes. He appreciated their devotion to the law, and periodically he’d join them for meals in their homes. We can imagine that there were some fine conversations over the fine points of scriptural interpretation. They may even have approved of his calls for repentance, though they likely thought he wasn’t talking to them. But they couldn’t get over his regular associations with sinners, the kind of persons that no ordinary law-abiding rabbi would be caught dead with.
That same sort of separation between the sinners and the righteous is played out every Sunday in most of our congregations. The people who show up for worship are generally pretty decent folks. Sins are carefully concealed under artfully crafted facades of piety. As we look around the sanctuary we smile at our friends and give a little wave to acquaintances, we’re not likely to see ourselves as sinners hungering for a word of grace. What a contrast we have in the 12 Step groups that often use our buildings. In them, mere participation is a cry for help and an admission of addiction, and it’s there that Jesus finds his friends.
Thought for the Day: How does my culture distinguish between saints and sinners?
0 Comments