Luke 15:1-2 (NIV) Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
As Luke previously noted (14:25),large crowds followed Jesus everywhere He went. And those crowds were not composed of only “good church folks.” They largely consisted of what the Pharisees called “‘Am ha-‘aretz,” or “people of the earth.” These were just normal people, including laborers, shopkeepers, fishermen, and, yes, sinners and tax collectors. They were people who didn’t have time to intensely study all 613 laws in the five books of Moses, let alone the volumes of commentary and interpretations that had been written on them over the centuries. So they frequently ran afoul of at least the Pharisees’ version of the law, and so were written off as hopeless by those in the religious elite.
Of course, all of them were legitimate sinners, having broken many of God’s commandments. (So were the Pharisees and teachers of the law, if they were honest!) And so the religious leaders were scandalized when Jesus didn’t upbraid them for their sins, or even drive them away. Conventional wisdom was that if you associated with sinners, you yourself could become corrupted. But Jesus chose to associate with those people, even eating with them.
Of course this was not the first or last time that this accusation had been leveled against Jesus – it was, in fact, a regular occurrence. One of the more notable was recorded by Luke in 5:29-32. Levi/Matthew had just been called by Jesus to leave his business as a tax collector in Capernaum, and had simply walked away to become one of Jesus’ followers. In the next scene, Matthew is throwing a great feast in Jesus’ honor, and has invited his fellow tax-collectors and many others to come and meet his new boss.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law were blown away that a supposed holy man like Jesus would choose to hang out with that kind of motley crew. But Jesus silenced their judgmentalism and complaints at once. He did not choose to hang out with that kind of people because they were more fun, or somehow more genuine than “church folks.” He hung out with them because they were spiritually sick and damaged, and needed the kind of healing and spiritual wholeness that He had come equipped to give. He would not condemn them or write them off for their sins. Instead, He would call them to repentance, and they would indeed repent and find forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus.
Father, I can see that it is very important that we ourselves don’t fall into the teachings and mindset of the Pharisees, sitting in judgment on sinful humanity, even writing off those who seem too bad. Instead, we need to have the mindset of Jesus, and realize that our commission is to intentionally go to those who are lost and sinful, and living in the darkness, urging them to repent, and bringing to them the kind of healing and spiritual wholeness that we ourselves have received from Jesus. Help us to keep that calling first and foremost in our minds and hearts as we live each day in Your kingdom. Amen.