MARK 2:13 - 17Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him.
Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”
When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
Getting Cozy With Riffraff
The guests Levi (we know him best as Matthew) invited to dinner weren’t disreputable to him. They were his kind. Fellow tax collectors. Drinking buddies. Levi didn’t disapprove of them, the deeply religious folks did. The ones who carefully obeyed God, regularly went to Temple, sought a revival in the land; it was to these Pharisees that Levi’s guests were scum. (Do a study of all the religious movements in the 1st Century and you’ll discover these men comprised the religious conservatives of the day who wanted to return their nation to its godly heritage!)
I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases their disparaging question to Jesus in The Message, “What kind of example is this, acting cozy with the riffraff?" And cozy they were. Some, perhaps many, of this “kind” followed Jesus. And we can be sure they did not conform to the pious strictures of the Pharisees. In fact, they probably barely understood what Jesus was all about, let alone reflected his holiness.
If impressionable people saw Jesus hanging with this riffraff, if youth observed this questionable behavior, if the spiritually weak witnessed it – why, could anyone doubt that they would misunderstand Jesus’ cozy relationship with them as approval!? Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus just wasn’t a very good role model. He flirted with boundaries no truly spiritual person would flirt with.
If Jesus truly wanted to influence these kind of people, don’t go to their parties. Don’t hang with them. Get them to the Temple. Preach to them. Get them on their knees, repenting. Present some sin offering. This is the way spiritual people deal with sinner scum.
Cozy with the riffraff. What kind of people do today’s religiously pious-theological conservatives-who want to return their nation to godliness consider riffraff; sinner scum? The ACLU? Abortion providers? Homosexual rights activists? Liberal Democrats? Agnostics? People who post naked pictures of themselves on the internet?
I wonder what would happen if a Wesleyan pastor started regularly socializing with riffraff like these? What if they started attending his church? What if some of them came to faith in Christ, but didn’t embrace the identical piety of established members, yet wanted to begin getting in involved in the church family?
One of the aspects I’ve always appreciated about my church is its mission to make disciples of Jesus Chist by worshiping God, proclaiming the Bible, and welcoming all who come.
Today’s text forces me to step back from that last phrase and wonder if we really mean it the way Jesus lived it.
Father, forgive me for never really figuring out how to keep many of the deeply pious, and usually core members of the church, happy while, at the same time, faithfully forging relationships with those whom deeply committed church folk often consider repulsive riffraff. Grant that I, and my deeply committed brothers and sisters in the faith, would find new ways to reflect your passion for sinners, especially those kind that our kind often see as enemies of godliness.
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