The Loving Eye of the Lord (2)
Mark 2:15-17 Later that day, Jesus and his followers ate at Levi’s house. There were also many tax collectors and others with bad reputations eating with them. (There were many of these people who followed Jesus.) When some teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with such bad people, they asked his followers, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “It is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners.”
Society seems very quick indeed to throw people on the scrap heap – people who look different, who believe differently, who behave differently, to the rest of us. Why do we do that?
Fine, someone’s behaviour is less than acceptable. But we tend only to look at their response, rather than what triggered them in the first place – what hurt from the past, what pressure their under right now, what human frailty that’s left them coming up short.
Sure, people need to be held to account for their behaviour. But I wonder how different our world would be if ordinary folk like you and me simply stumped up and loved them unconditionally.
Remember Levi – the dirty, rotten, despised, ostracised tax collector whom we met yesterday? The same one whom Jesus invited (shock, horror) to join Him?
Mark 2:15-17 Later that day, Jesus and his followers ate at Levi’s house. There were also many tax collectors and others with bad reputations eating with them. (There were many of these people who followed Jesus.) When some teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Jesus eating with such bad people, they asked his followers, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “It is the sick people who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. I did not come to invite good people. I came to invite sinners.”
Those much vaunted religious leaders wanted Jesus to act like a doctor on the one hand, yet avoid sick people on the other. That just didn’t add up for Him. It still doesn’t.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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