"getting Too Friendly With Sinners"

“Getting too Friendly with Sinners”

Luke 15:1-10

Imagine living in Jesus’ world and imagine being labeled a “sinner” in that world.

Now, I think we stumble over that term in this context because according to Christian doctrine we are all sinners, right?

But this wasn’t necessarily the way people thought in the Jewish world that Jesus occupied some 2,000 years ago.

Some people were considered sinners in need of repentance while others were not.

They were “the righteous who had no need of repentance.”

When it comes to reading the Bible, context is everything.

It was believed that people who had certain physical ailments such as blindness, a skin disease or those whose reproductive organs had been crushed were “sinners.”

The poor were often thought of as being sinners since they couldn’t read the Law or perhaps couldn’t afford, financially, to purchase animals for sacrifice.

You were a sinner if you didn’t eat the correct foods.

You were a sinner if you did anything interpreted as work on the Sabbath.

You might be considered a sinner if you had an unusual bodily discharge or if you touched someone who did.

A woman was a sinner during her monthly flow of blood.

People with hunched backs were sinners and outcastes.

As we are told in Leviticus 13, such people “must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ …

…they must live alone; they must live outside the camp.”

This context makes it all the more understandable why the very fact that Jesus, Who was considered to be a “holy man of God” by so many, but regularly welcomed “sinners and” ate “with them” was such a scandal.

And this is what the Pharisees were grumbling about at the beginning of our Gospel Lesson for this morning, and throughout the Gospels.

As a matter of fact, one of the main reasons Jesus was put to death was because, in the eyes of the religious rulers, He hung around all the wrong people.

Now, the Greek word for “welcomes” in verse 2, in the context of “This man welcomes sinners…” the Greek word for “welcomes” literally means to bring a person into your arms.

It means to embrace someone.

It’s not just a word of welcome when someone comes to the front door of your house—it is a great big bear hug from Jesus Himself!!!

Isn’t that an awesome image?

But it wasn’t an awesome image for those following the Law…

…because, according to biblical Law touching sinners made the person who touched them—unclean!

Jesus really stood in solidarity with the tax collectors, the outcasts, the lepers, the promiscuous, the hated, the poor, the lonely, the marginalized—you name it!

And so, if Jesus gave a great big bear hug to all these otherwise tossed aside human beings, it’s no wonder they became His followers, His disciples, the ones who loved Him.

He might very well have been the first person to show them love; the only person to accept them, to welcome them into His presence, to touch them—even.

Jesus was a really, really nice guy.

And I hope we don’t miss that part about Him.

Jesus was a gentle lover of people—all people.

And people loved Him back because of this—everyone loved Him back because of this except for those who didn’t like the people He was welcoming and loving on!

I mean, Jesus was literally treading on the belief system of the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes.

He wasn’t doing what they thought their Bible said to do.

He was turning everything upside down.

He was a heretic in their eyes.

He was a blasphemer.

He was a law-breaker.

He was NOT a good Bible believing Jew.

Because if He were, He would be shunning the sinners, not welcoming them, not touching them, not embracing them, not living with them.

Jesus was just too inclusive for these religious leaders of His day.

And so, they thought it was God’s will that they get rid of Him.

And that’s exactly what they tried to do by having Him nailed to the Cross.

But even death can’t stop LOVE and TRUTH.

(pause)

Again, let’s read the beginning of our lesson for this morning: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.

But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”

And Jesus doesn’t defend Himself or say the Pharisees are exaggerating.

On the contrary, He shows how right they are by telling them the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

(pause)

In contrast to Jesus we live in a world of ungrace.

If someone cuts us off in traffic, we call them names.

If we feel someone has wronged us, we take them to court.