while jesus was in the house eating, many tax-collectors and sinners came and joined Him and Him disciples at the meal. when the pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "why does your rabbi eat with tax-collectors and sinners?" but Jesus heard the question and answered, "the ones who need a doctor aren't the healthy but the sick. as for you, go and learn what this means: 'I want compassion rather than sacrifice.' (hosea 6:6) for I didn't come to call the 'righteous,' but sinners! matthew 9:10-13
so i am going to make the short, sweet, and hopefully simple.
as i read the words of Jesus to the pharisees i think about how often we skim past His words, missing the point, because we have demonized the pharisees in our modern church circles to the point that we can't (or maybe won't) relate to them because... gosh, they were so dense they should have got the point from the start, right?
why did Jesus allow those who were sinners to eat with Him for dinner? why did He allow them to be around His inner circle of followers? why was Jesus not surrounding Himself with those who had their lives on track?
didn't Jesus know what they had done? was He unaware of the gravity of their sins?
i imagine the pharisees were upset because they were probably personally affected and offended by the sins of these people who suddenly had the privilege of eating a meal with Jesus. in the small cities Jesus ministered in, it is no wonder that people knew and had experienced the aftermath of the sins of others. and now Jesus, the one who was supposedly the Righteous One, the Messiah, was eating with these jerks who had hurt so many in the community with their sinful lives.
and if we can get the "pharisee" picture out of our minds that preachers have shoved in there with rhetoric and actually think of real life senarios involving real people, i imagine we will have the same questions that they had.
why Jesus? why them when they for sure do not deserve it?
sometimes Jesus offends me just as much as He offended them. how about you?
for the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. (matt 18:11)
charis
linking up with barbie this week for fresh brewed sundays.
