Jesus Always Has the Answer
I think anyone who has spent even a little time in the gospels knows that the Pharisees are the bad guys. It was the Pharisees who argued with Jesus – it was the Pharisees who had Jesus killed! The Pharisees were the butt of many of Jesus’ parables and as such they have become every preacher’s favorite straw man. Don’t be like the Pharisees, and you are on the right track. How do you become a faithful disciple of Jesus? Well, begin by doing the opposite of what the Pharisees did. It seems like every step of the way the disciples and Pharisees were on opposite ends of the spectrum…well almost. There is one time (at least) where I think the disciples and Pharisees were on the exact same page. One time where both the Pharisees and disciples were asking the exact same question, namely, “What in the world is Jesus doing!??!"
In Matthew chapter 9, after the author shares with us his own first encounter with Jesus he writes the following: And as he (Jesus) sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" (Vv. 10-11 NRSV) I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that when the disciples heard this question, they were not thinking to themselves; “You stupid Pharisees, why don’t you ever understand?" I don’t think they were snickering, “Lousy Pharisees, just wait till Jesus gets his hands on you." I think they were probably asking themselves the exact same question. Perhaps even with an extra dose of frantic desperation.
“Jesus what are you doing???"
“What are we doing???"
“I hate to say this Jesus, but I’m actually with the Pharisees on this one!"
Why was Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners? Left to their own devices, this was a question the disciples could not answer, at least not comfortably. I’m sure the Pharisees at this point would have been willing to offer up a plausible explanation; “Perhaps it’s because Jesus too is a sinner. He eats with his own kind." But this would not have sat well with Peter and the gang surely. And so for a few awkward moments, silence hung in the air as they tried to come up with something – anything – that would explain this horrible social gaffe on the part of their rabbi. And then the silence is broken. But when he (again, Jesus) heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." (Vv. 12-13 NRSV)
Jesus – as he is so wont to do – drops an Old Testament bomb on the proceedings. A Hosea 6:6 bomb to be precise; a lit match into the powder keg of confusion. And here’s the greatest part. Jesus is at some level saying that the Pharisees (at least as I imagined what they would say) were right. He does eat with his kind. He does identify with his people, and his people are sinners. What Jesus is saying…and what he is going to confirm with his curtain-ripping, sky-rending, earth-shattering death, burial, and resurrection is that sinners are exactly his people and the kind of people that he is going to eat with not just in this one time meal but in the marriage supper of the Lamb. It will be sinners welcomed to the table in God’s kingdom, sinners who know and who have known that they are sinners, because only one who knows they are a sinner can receive what Jesus offers. And what does he offer? A meal. Bread and wine yes but more importantly it’s what this meal points to. It is bread that reminds us of a body, and it is wine that reminds us of blood. Righteous blood and a righteous body given for us. Jesus shows us, and the disciples, and the Pharisees where mercy and sacrifice meet. Where the righteous and sinners meet – indeed where sinners stop being sinners and return to what the Father always intended them to be. The righteous people of God. Jesus-people. His kind.